Australian Defense Tech Hackathon

Time to Accelerate Defense Innovation! Join us and 100+ hackers from across Australia for the first edition of the Australian Defense Tech Hackathon on February 6-8, 2026, in Canberra, Australia. Connect with fellow defense innovators, meet potential co-founders, and work on projects that could save lives! ​We'll prepare challenges based on real-world problems, and you can bring your own project and receive feedback from experienced mentors. We'll put you in a position to deploy your project in the real world after the hackathon. ​Goals ​1) Solve urgent defense and security challenges: Get inspired by the challenges we have prepared, together with partners in Australia and NATO, driven by real needs. You can also bring your own project—you'll get feedback from folks who have been on the front line to ensure you're solving real problems. ​2) Launch new careers and companies: Whether you're breaking into the defense sector or building your own product and company, ​our goal with the hackathon is to put you in a position to continue towards deployment. ​3) Strengthen Australia through defense innovation: Here is where Australia's top talent meets the most pressing threats. By building and shipping, we demonstrate what a fast, capable, and resilient Australia's defense ecosystem looks like. Focus Areas We’ll feature 10–15 challenges across domains, with this hackathon concentrating on mission-critical capabilities aligned to Australia’s strategic and operational needs, focused on: SIGINT & OSINT Computer Vision & Edge AI Unmanned & Autonomous Systems (UxS) Electronic Warfare (EW) Modular SensorsDrone & Counter-Drone Tech Battlefield Economics & Scaling ProductionHypersonics and Missile Defence Agenda Friday, February 6, 2026 Kick-off Day 12:00 - Doors open, Networking 13:00 - Welcome and Opening Program 14:00 - Workshops 17:00 - Introduction to Mentors & Challenges, Last-Minute Team Formation 18:00 - Start of Hacking Saturday, February 7, 2026 Hacking continues all day Sunday, February 8, 2026 12:00 - End of Hacking, Lunch Break Demo Day (Open to Visitors) 13:00 - Pitches of the winning teams 15:00 - Award Ceremony 15:30 - After-party & Networking To give the 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.