In February 2026, we hosted our first defense tech hackathon outside Europe: the Australian Defense Tech Hackathon in Canberra.
Together with UNSW Canberra, the electronic warfare startup Panop, and the venture fund Beaten Zone Venture Partners, we brought 150 builders and mentors into one room — including mentors from the Australian Army and Air Force and veterans from Ukraine — to turn ideas into prototypes for Pacific security, in the Australian context.
Since 2024, thousands of builders have joined more than 100 EDTH events across Europe — hackathons, meetups, field tests, conferences, and more. The idea hasn’t changed: bring builders together with operators who understand the problem, give them room to iterate quickly, and help promising teams to keep going after the event ends.
Now we’re taking a much bigger step toward defense collaboration between the Asia-Pacific and Europe: the EDTH Asia Tour. Five events, four countries: From September 25 to October 11, we’re running three defense tech hackathons, a startup showcase, and a conference on defense manufacturing.
Each stop came from someone who pushed it forward:
Prof. Gary Ang got us started on the Singapore Defense Tech Hackathon, co-hosted with NUS Enterprise and TUM VentureLabs on September 25–27. Ping Wang, Prof. Kang Li, and his team at NTU made the Taiwan Defense Tech Hackathon happen. Hayata Okubo and Plug and Play Japan put together the Dual-Use Innovation Showcase in Tokyo, and Ryo Tokoshima and the Deloitte Tohmatsu Venture Support (DTVS) team agreed to co-host the “From Prototype to Production” conference. Joshua Bang was the first to nudge us about Korea, and David Choi and the team at Deploy for Defense became our partners for the first Korea Defense Tech Hackathon.
We’re thrilled to have Vektor Group as a key partner for the entire tour — joining every event and hosting side events along the way. Vektor Group is a European technology group focused on sovereign security, defense, and homeland security platforms.
The Route
Sep 25–27 — Singapore Defense Tech Hackathon
120+ builders on agentic command and control, integrated air defense, and additive manufacturing at scale.
Oct 2–4 — Taiwan Defense Tech Hackathon
Drones, jamming, navigation, and maritime awareness.
Oct 6 — Europe–Japan Dual-Use Innovation Showcase
Startups meet corporates, investors, and government.
Oct 7 — From Prototype to Production, Japan
A conference on turning prototypes into reliable production.
Oct 9–11 — Korea Defense Tech Hackathon
150+ builders on UAS, counter-UAS, and urgent security challenges.
Singapore: Readying the Little Red Dome
The tour opens with the Singapore Defense Tech Hackathon, co-organized with NUS Enterprise and TUM Venture Labs. From September 25 to 27, more than 120 engineers, founders, and operators will gather under one mission: Readying the Little Red Dome.
The next air attack won’t be a handful of expensive missiles. It will be large numbers of cheap, increasingly autonomous systems arriving at once. The challenge is making sensors, command and control, and low-cost effectors work as a single air defense system — and building it from technology that can be sourced and manufactured locally.
Teams will work on autonomous C2, sensor-to-shooter integration, counter-UAS, electronic warfare, and resilient communications.
Some applicants were selected for a three-month challenge track ahead of the event and will present their work at the hackathon. The strongest projects can go on to a nine-month incubation program at the NUS Defence Tech Venture Lab.
Lead partners: Accenture · Cognition · Shield AI · DSTA (Defence Science & Technology Agency)
Partners: DSO National Laboratories · Adaption · Enterprise Singapore · Neros · ST Engineering · Republic of Singapore Air Force · DIS · Miltrade Technologies · Hevelius · Roboze · Resaro · Vektor Group · Rohde & Schwarz · Singapore Army
Supported by: Capvista · Yong Hon Kong Foundation · IQT (In-Q-Tel) · OTB Ventures · B Capital
Apply for the Singapore Defense Tech Hackathon
Taiwan: Building for a Contested Environment
One week later, we head to Taipei for our first Taiwan Defense Tech Hackathon, hosted with the Unmanned Vehicles R&D Center at National Taiwan University and the Institute for National Defense and Security Research.
Builders will work on grey-zone drone incursions, swarming threats, communications under jamming or undersea-cable disruption, GNSS-denied navigation, maritime awareness, and low-cost interception. The challenge statements come from partners in Taiwan and Europe — real problems, not hypotheticals.
Operators, engineers, and founders will mentor teams throughout the weekend. And the work doesn’t stop at the final presentations: we keep working with the strongest teams afterward, connecting them with technical support and potential partners.
Partners: Vektor Group · Liberal Democratic League of Ukraine · iAuto · Boaqi Smart Tech · LongLink · NTU Department of Mechanical Engineering · EDGE (Europe-Asia Defense Tech Global Ecosystem)
Apply for the Taiwan Defense Tech Hackathon
Tokyo: Connecting European and Japanese Dual-Use Startups
On October 6, we head to Tokyo with Plug and Play Japan for the Europe–Japan Dual-Use Innovation Showcase — connecting European startups exploring Japan with Japanese teams looking for partners in Europe.
The program runs expert sessions, six startup pitches, and direct meetings with corporates, investors, and government representatives. The focus is on what happens next: pilots, investment, and market entry.
Apply for the Europe–Japan Dual-Use Innovation Showcase
Tokyo: From Prototype to Production
The following day, we co-organize From Prototype to Production — Japan with Deloitte Tohmatsu Venture Support. The one-day conference asks how Japan can turn its existing industrial strengths into autonomous systems built at speed and scale.
Japan’s robotics, semiconductor, automotive, and precision-manufacturing sectors already know how to produce complex systems reliably. The gap is connecting those industries with defense startups and military requirements.
Sessions will cover drone architectures, dual-use components, domestic suppliers, procurement, propulsion, energy storage, embedded computing, and sensor integration — all circling one question: what does it actually take to get from a working prototype to repeatable production?
Apply for the From Prototype to Production — Japan conference
Seoul: Testing UAS, Counter-UAS Systems, And More
The tour ends in Seoul with the Korea Defense Tech Hackathon, organized with Deploy for Defense. From October 9 to 11, more than 100 builders from South Korea, Europe, and beyond will work on UAS, counter-UAS, and related defense technologies.
Challenges include autonomous ISR, low-cost interception, sensor fusion, uncrewed ground and maritime systems, and electronic warfare. Operators, domain experts, and military end users will give teams feedback while they build. Afterward, EDTH and D4D keep working with the strongest teams to push their projects forward.
Apply for the Korea Defense Tech Hackathon
Why This Matters
Europe and the Asia-Pacific are working on versions of the same problem. Cheap autonomous systems probing airspace. Undersea cables that turn out to be easy to cut. Navigation that stops working when someone decides to jam it. Supply chains running through countries you would rather they didn’t. Pressure that stays just below the threshold of war and never really stops.
Details differ by region, and geography matters. But the technologies are the same, the timelines are similar, and the gap between what’s needed and what actually exists is the same at both ends of the continent.
The other side figured this out a while ago. The Shahed-136 was an Iranian design; Russia bought the technology, developed it further, and localized production at Alabuga. Almost every one of those drones runs on Chinese components: engines, navigation modules, carbon fiber. And North Korea has shipped Russia more artillery ammunition than Europe has sent Ukraine. What works on one front shows up on another within months.
Democracies have more talent, more capital, and better engineers. What’s been missing is the habit of building together — across distance, across time zones, across procurement systems that were never meant to talk to each other. No single country closes these gaps alone. The version that works is capability spread across many places, built in parallel, and shared openly between partners who trust each other.
That’s what the EDTH Asia Tour is for. Not weekend prototypes, and not picking winners. We’re looking for the teams who keep testing, keep building, and keep deploying long after the hackathon ends — the ones who will build what the free world needs and doesn’t have yet.
Seven months after the Australian Defense Tech Hackathon, the EDTH Asia Tour will begin in Singapore on September 25. Applications are open across all five stops. Whether you want to build, test, pitch, or help turn prototypes into production, we hope to see you somewhere along the route.
Explore all EDTH events: events.eurodefense.tech