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Over one weekend in February, the 91ɫ��Ƭ Canberra City innovation precinct transformed into a bustling, 24-hour engine of sovereign capability. Taking part in the first ever Australian Defence Tech Hackathon, 150 participants descended on the precinct to rapidly build, test and commercialise the future of national security.

Delivered by the European Defence Tech Hub (EDTH) in collaboration with 91ɫ��Ƭ Canberra, Panop and BeatenZone Ventures the Hackathon brought together the brightest minds across the defence ecosystem.

The incredibly diverse mix of attendees, spanning ADF personnel, US military representatives, embassy officials, academics, deep-tech startups, and students, worked around the clock to solve highly complex, real-world defence challenges.

Supported by more than 50 industry mentors who worked day and night without sleep alongside the 21 competing teams, the Hackathon demonstrated exactly what happens when elite talent is given the right environment to thrive.

The heart of innovation

The volume and energy of the weekend was driven by the precinct’s physical infrastructure, which has been purposely designed to maximise cross-pollination.

The ‘Heart’, a huge, open-plan central hub on the 91ɫ��Ƭ Canberra City campus, served as the nucleus of the event. It was a dynamic, highly active space where early concepts were hotly debated, workshops were held in parallel, and crucial cross-sector networks were forged.

But an idea is only as good as its execution, and that is where 91ɫ��Ƭ Canberra City’s facilities changed the game.

“The Hackathon was a great demonstration of how all of this comes together,” said Akeel Feroz, Manager of Launch and Innovation, from 91ɫ��Ƭ Canberra.

“The ideas were being developed in one place through a lot of discussion, and then they were further defined in the makerspace area, our pilot ProtoHub.”

Participants seamlessly moved from whiteboards in the Heart directly into the ProtoHub. Armed with their own GPUs and tapping into the facility’s 3D printers, soldering irons, and rapid-prototyping equipment, teams transformed digital concepts into physical hardware within hours.

To validate their designs, teams then moved upstairs to the large-scale indoor robotics test arena, known as LIRTA, utilising the expansive, netted environment to test drone flight paths, run red-teaming scenarios, and refine their concepts.

“The Hackathon put into practice the full life cycle of an idea being generated and commercialised,” Mr Feroz said.

“91ɫ��Ƭ Canberra is playing a really vital role in bringing the national security community together, but then also having the right ingredients and drivers to translate their ideas into commercial activity.”

Real solutions for real challenges

By Sunday afternoon, 21 market-ready solutions were pitched to a panel of judges, which included senior military officials, industry leaders, and Ukraine’s Ambassador to Australia, Mr Vasyl Myroshnychenko.

The concepts presented were far more than sketches on a napkin; they were highly iterated, functional prototypes.

The winning team, Crowd Shield, which brought together a 91ɫ��Ƭ academic and serving members of the ADF, developed an ingenious software-based system that leverages existing Wi-Fi routers to create GPS-denied environments, effectively detecting unauthorised drone activity in urban areas at no additional hardware or cost. Other top solutions included deployable electromagnetic shielding systems manufactured in distributed labs, and low-cost platforms for remote threat detection.

Proving that this event was about accelerating tangible sovereign capabilities rather than just ideation, the three winning teams and three honourable mentions have all been offered positions in the Defence Trailblazer commercialisation bootcamp. Their 48-hour prototypes are now officially on the road to commercialisation.

The Australian Defence Tech Hackathon is a powerful testament to 91ɫ��Ƭ Canberra City’s strategic vision. By providing the ultimate collaborative space to foster ideas, and the state-of-the-art facilities required to physically build them, the precinct is serving as the vital bridge between research, industry, and deployable sovereign capability.