What if years of critical supply-chain delays could be collapsed into months or even weeks?
Ad Astra Group is launching a national series of Industrial Base Hackathons to tackle the systemic bottlenecks slowing America’s critical supply chains. Our first hackathon will be co-hosted with Oracle, Exodys Energy, and Texas Nuclear Alliance in Austin, TX.
This hackathon brings together manufacturers, founders, investors, primes, OEMs, operators, academia and government to transform pre-surfaced industrial chokepoints—currently handled in silos—into a precise list of implementable, investable solutions that inform financing, policy, and structural action.The Goal: Accelerate rebuilding America’s industrial base.We focus on chokepoints impacting critical sectors such as energy, defense, food, medical devices, aerospace and more—for example:
Limited transportation links between suppliersOnly one drone-training facility nationwideMinimal capacity to certify DoD castingsMajor metal-parts manufacturers stuck in audit limboBanking regulations that prevent industrial loansInfrastructure upgrades stalled by permittingScarce grades of steel powering the electrical grid
What we’ll do in one day
Break into solution pods4-6 cross-domain teams (builders, capital, policy, operators) tackle 8–10 pre-surfaced bottlenecks. They map root causes across technical, structural, financial, workforce, and regulatory barriers and develop actionable solutions with support from experts. All visual and audio are captured for the national repository.Regulatory & Policy TrackPolicymakers, legal experts, and regulators work in parallel to outline clear pathways for reform.Circulating ExpertsSubject-matter experts, including operators, procurement leaders, regulators, federal agencies, investors, lenders, and economic-development groups, rotate between teams to refine solutions.On-Call Expert NetworkA remote group of 200 experts is available throughout the day for rapid guidance.Present SolutionsTeams present to a panel of industry, investment, and government leaders. Results feed directly into the national Bottleneck Tracker and the public Results Report.Compound KnowledgeEvery bottleneck and solution enters a national dataset that informs future hackathons, policy conversations, and financing structures—creating a national feedback loop that surfaces barriers and accelerates fixes across the industrial base.
Food and drinks provided.
Who this is for
We’re curating people who can actually move the needle:
Manufacturers, industrial founders & primesEnergy, defense, robotics, infrastructure, food systems, medical devices, and more.Investors & lendersPrivate credit, venture, project finance, banks, family offices, and strategic capital.Government & policyDoD, DoE, OSC, SBA, procurement, permitting, certifications, standards, policy labs, state & local, economic development, industrial strategy.Operators & ecosystem buildersEngineers, supply-chain leaders, integrators, think tanks, industry groups, educators.
Media will also be covering this event.
If you work on real production capacity, technological innovation, or the capital, regulations and policy that shapes it, you’re in the right room.
How to participate
This is not a networking event or a conference. It’s a curated working session where each participant will be solving real problems.
Apply to join the hackathon by Dec 5Share your role, background, and bottlenecks you care about.👉 Apply aboveSubmit a bottleneck by Dec 5Have a constraint (materials, certification, capacity, financing, policy, workforce) we should look at?👉 Submit hereInterested in sponsoring or co-hosting future events?Help underwrite the work of mapping, solving, and scaling solutions across the industrial base.👉 Reach out
For more information visit: www.industrialbasehackathons.com