Time to Accelerate European Defense Innovation 🚀 Join us and 100+ hackers from all across Europe and beyond for the European Defense Tech Hackathon on March 6-8, 2026, in Rzeszów, Poland. We’re excited to co-organize this hackathon with the Polish Development Fund (PFR) and Rzeszów City to support the creation of innovative technology in Poland, under the patronage of the Minister of National Defence of Poland. PFR offers instruments to support the development of enterprises, local government units, and private individuals, thereby investing in the country's sustainable social development and economic growth. One of PFR's projects is the IDA program, which supports innovative entities in developing dual-use technologies. Goal We want to bridge the gaps between technologists, the public sector, investors, and operators in dual-use and defense technology. This hackathon will demonstrate the talent and drive of the European ecosystem. Get inspired by the challenges we have prepared, or feel free to bring your own project. You'll get feedback from folks who have been on the frontline to ensure you're solving real problems. Our goal with the hackathon is to put you in a position to continue towards deployment. Challenges We'll focus on counter-drone operations and protecting critical infrastructure from all types of aerial threats, from small quadcopters to larger Shahed-style UAVs. You will tackle challenges in multi-sensor detection, navigation without GPS, low-cost radar and optical tracking, secure friend-or-foe identification, RF-based threat detection, and resilient command-and-control networks. Visitors To give participants time and space to focus on their projects, 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. Agenda Friday, 6 March 2025 – Opening Day • 17:00 – Open networking • 18:00 – Introduction of mentors and challenges • 19:00 – Night tour of the Rzeszów underground Saturday, 7 March 2025 • Hacking continues throughout the day Sunday, 8 March 2025 • 10:00 – End of hacking, presentation testing • 12:00 – Lunch break Demo Day (open to guests) • 13:00 – Presentations of the winning teams • 15:00 – Award ceremony • 15:30 – After-party and networking
