Join us and 100+ hackers from all across Europe and beyond for the European Defense Tech Hackathon on November 7-9, 2025, in Paris, France.
After our first Paris hackathon with 170 attendees last November, we’re excited to be back! This is your chance to connect with fellow defense innovators, meet potential co-founders, and work on projects that have the potential to save lives.
We’ll prepare challenges based on real-world problems, and you can bring your own project. You’ll get feedback from experienced mentors, and we’ll put you in a position to deploy your project in the real world after the hackathon.
Challenge Tracks
Challenge Track by Bifrost Defence: Modular Maritime Dominance – Unmanned Surface Vehicles
Unmanned Surface Vehicles USVs are redefining asymmetric naval power; as seen in Ukraine’s use of low-cost, high-impact systems to disrupt the Black Sea Fleet. This track calls on participants to design modular USVs built around a single operating core, scalable across sea, land, and air domains.
Key challenges include autonomous swarming, payload integration and resilient communications in contested maritime environments. From ISR to search and rescue, participants will prototype next-gen, multi-role systems that push the limits of modularity, interoperability, and mission adaptability.
Goals
1) Solve urgent defense and security challenges: Each hackathon features a fresh set of challenges sourced directly from frontline partners in Ukraine, NATO, and across the EU—driven by real needs, not theory.
2) Launch new careers and companies: Whether you’re breaking into the defense sector or building your own product and company, we connect you with jobs, funding, and pathways toward real-world deployment.
3) Strengthen Europe through defense innovation: Here is where Europe’s top talent meets the most pressing threats. By building and shipping, we demonstrate what a fast, capable, and resilient European defense ecosystem looks like.
Agenda
Friday, November 7, 2025
Kick-off Day
12:00 – Doors open, Networking
13:00 – Welcome
14:00 – Workshops, Team Formation, Networking
18:00 – Start of Hacking
Saturday, November 8, 2025
Hacking All Day
Sunday, November 9, 2025
12:00 – End of Hacking
Demo Day (Open to Visitors)
13:00 – Pitches of all the teams
14:30 – Award Ceremony
15:00 – After-party & Networking
To give the participants time and space to focus on their projects during the hackathon, we’ll have no visitors during the hackathon. If you’re curious about the outcomes and what the teams have built, please sign up as a visitor for our demo day on Sunday.
Acknowledgements
Huge thanks to iXcampus for hosting us. We’re proud to be supported by bold, forward-leaning partners: Parrot, Project Q, Alta Ares, Bifrost Defence, Comand AI, Pilotix, Proteus Group, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, Inflection.xyz, and DroneAid Collective.
Finally, heartfelt thanks to our co-organizers, Antoine Bassoul, Fawzi ELGHAZOUI, Thomas Bernaudon, Vincent Lordier, and Stéphane Razzon—none of this would be possible without your dedication and leadership.