From October 15th to 17th, the European Commission's Defence Innovation Programme (EUDIS) international defence innovation hackathon "Defence Hackathon 2026 Latvia" will take place at the Academic Centre of the University of Latvia (LU) in Rīga, bringing together startups, researchers, engineers and technology developers.
The overall theme of this autumn's European Commission's Defence Innovation Programme hackathon is "Autonomy on the Battlefield", focusing on autonomous systems and robotics solutions in air, land, sea and space environments.
In addition to the common theme of the European Commission's Defence Innovation Programme, the Latvian hackathon has a local challenge "Autonomous Border Shield: Detect, Classify and Prioritise Low-Altitude Threats", which has been developed taking into account Latvia's regional security and defence innovation priorities, operational realities and technological capabilities. Within the framework of the challenge, participants will be tasked with developing a solution that can autonomously detect, classify and prioritise low-altitude threats.
Over two and a half days, participants will collaborate with defence experts, industry representatives, and mentors to check their solutions, refine their application in real-world situations, and prepare them for further development. Participants will also participate in lectures and practical workshops.
At the end of the hackathon, teams will present their solutions to a jury, competing for a prize pool of 10,000 euros.
The European Commission's Defence Innovation Programme "Defence Hackathon" is an initiative of the European Commission that aims to foster innovation in the defence sector by bringing together entrepreneurs, researchers, engineers and technology developers from across Europe to address common defence, cybersecurity and resilience challenges.
The hackathon is organized by the University of Latvia in cooperation with the Latvian Startup Association “Startin.LV”. It is supported by the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Latvia, the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia, UniLab, GDA Baltic, GDA Ukraine, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, LMT Defence, the Autonomous Systems Competence Centre, the Defence Technology and Innovation Centre, MilTech Latvia and the University of Latvia Foundation.
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