Who won the Offensive of Machines 2.0 hackathon

The Ministry of Defence of Ukraine published the results of the “Offensive of Machines 2.0” hackathon, organised in partnership with the Defence Builder defence startup accelerator. The final hackathon took place on 7-8 February and brought together more than 50 teams.

The hackathon focused on two strategic challenges relevant to the Defence Forces:

• countering guided aerial bombs (GABs), which are difficult to intercept with existing air defence systems;
• countering fibre-optic drones that are resistant to electronic warfare.

During the first stage, the participants worked on the challenges online for three weeks with the support of subject matter experts from the Defence Forces. At the final stage, on 7-8 December, the teams presented their solutions to the jury in an offline format.

Based on the results of the finals, the experts selected 12 winning teams that will share a grant prize fund totalling $150K. The winners include FENEK, ARES, GAV, Night Watch, Frontline, KB Technari, Motorhouse, Quadrotura and others.

The winning teams will also receive support from the Ministry of Defence in rapid testing and implementation of the proposed solutions. Deputy Minister of Defence Kateryna Chernogorenko noted that the ministry will ensure that the most interesting solutions of the Machine Offensive 2.0 will be used on the battlefield as soon as possible and will strengthen the Ukrainian army.

The $150K prize fund was provided by the hackathon partners: Tekever, MyDefence and Uklon, the Nezlamni Foundation, the D3 Investment Fund, the European Defence Tech Hub and the Defence Alliance of Ukraine.

“Development grants are only the first step. Future success depends on growing teams, attracting investment, effective testing and scaling of solutions that can significantly strengthen the Ukrainian Defence Forces”, Kateryna Bezsudna, co-founder and CEO of Defence Builder defence accelerator says.