This weekend Garage48 Defence Makeathon takes place at University of Tartu Institute of Physics. We’re happy to announce that we are completely sold out, and we had more participation requests than we’re able to fit into Institute of Physics!

Defence Makeathon has gathered together over 170 bright-minded professionals from different backgrounds and places like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, United States, Japan, Turkey, Jamaica etc to pick their brains and come up with whole new solutions to tackle the challenges of defence in the 21st century. What can be a daunting task alone, could be easily done together! It’s going to be a legendary event!

What are some of our mentors thinking about the Garage48 Defence Makeathon? 

“In the end, forming teams and bringing together people with different skill sets, so they could connect and share their experiences, is more important than the ideas that are brought up here,” said Jaak Tarien, Director of the Tallinn-based NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence

Tauri Tuubel, co-founder and CTO on Defendec added “Traditionally defence market has lots of regulations and long sales cycles. It is nice to see that there starts to be mind-shift. State of technology enables more agile and faster development, and maybe we can have fewer regulations and shorter time to market?”.

Uku Särekanno, Deputy Director General of the Information System Authority, said that “An excellent event! You can sum the whole event up with the legendary “get the shit done!” quote. Things must be executed quickly, and for the customers. That is an attitude that would also suit the Estonian state, and the Estonian Information System Authority is one of those institutions, where the work environment looks pretty similar to a hackathon.”

The event is organised by Garage48, Estonian Ministry of Defence, Estonian Defence Forces, Estonian National Defence College and Estonian Defence Industry Association.

Historically, the defence industry has led the way in research and development with industrial, commercial, and general public interests benefiting as various innovations become available to the rest of the world.

The hackathon brings together engineers and specialists from the defence sector, connecting them with students, developers, engineers and other experts from the civilian field in order to raise the awareness and knowledge about this specific, mysterious, but critically important field. Our goal is to attract new and ambitious talent and to develop innovative product concepts which could one day help defend our country. Garage48 Defence Hackathon is a perfect place for Baltics and Scandinavian military and defence schools to mix and mingle, share their expertise with civil experts and students and find new ways to cooperate in the future.

So who are those 14 teams?

1. Blink. Blind the Enemy with Flashing Light! Keep the Friendlies Safe with Shutter Glasses! Team: Kaarel Jogi - team leader; Roberts Gotlaufs - embedded hw/sw; Linards Jukmanis - embedded sw/hw; Edgars Lielāmurs - embedded sw/hw; Richard Jogi - hardware; coffee, Elie Gedeon - software.

2. Health Monitoring Uniform. A wearable health monitoring system to detect bleeding in battlefield situations and display critical information to the medic.
Team: Anatoli Kravtšuk (active military medic); Sander Karask (active military); Nora Biteniece (developer); Antoņina Vračinska (hardware engineer); Hendrik Kivi (developer); Kevin Laanemägi (developer); Ivars Bergs (developer); Ivo Uutma (hardware engineer); Kārlis Immers (developer).

4. Smart Mine Trigger.

5. HDI: Human Drone Interface. New type of drone controller: intuitive, easy to learn, portable, operated single-handedly. Applicable to all kinds of rotary flying machines. Team: Aarto Eipre - team lead; Petras Jurkuvenas - business dev, active military; Martin Maripu - hardware designer; Anti Paaro - electronics&software design; Erik Kaljumäe - software dev; Ragnar Luga - software dev; Caspar Romot - software dev.

6. T.A.B.C. Tech (Tactical Automated Barrel Cleaner Technologies). Cleaning artillery weapons using manual labor is very time consuming, ineffective and does not fit the requirements of todays high performance artillery, which needs constant operational readiness. Our automated cleaner T.A.B.C is a fast device operated by one person and can save up to 45 working hours a week just for one weapon. Team: Oliver Tüür - Team lead; Annes Kalle - active military; Andre Adamson - active military; Andres Ehrenpreis - Soft- and hardware, active military; Silvar Muru - Engineer; Rain Randsberg - Engineer; Magnus Otsa - Engineer; Üllar Raud - Developer; Jürgen Jürgenson - Business developer; Anu Piirisild - Team assistant; Miikael Allik - Rising Star.

7. Spotter. Quick graphical sharing of the information about enemy location on the battlefield. Team: Vladimir Kolotõgin - active military; Martin Abram - active military; Tiit Kuuskmäe - Developer; Mantas Rukuiža - Technology architect; Vello Laanemaa - Visualizer.

8. Pointman. The Smart Foregrip for Effortless Navigation and Target Acquisition.
Team: Erkki Tikk - Team Lead; Georgs Kozulis - Product Manager/Developer; Norman Saarso - End-user / UX / Marketing; Taavi Hein - Developer; Mihkel Heidelberg - Engineer; Villem Koern - Engineer; Rokas Tamosiunas - Business Development

9. AMaR. Create a map application that will help anti-tank weapon operators choose the best spot in a terrain map to shoot the target from, by analyzing the terrain and visibility. Team: Siim Kaspar Uustalu - dev; Arvids Pelecis - dev; Viktors Roze - dev; Martin Valgur - dev; Ivo Kubjas - lead, dev; Jaak Laineste - dev; Toms Rijnieks - dev; Tarvi Tiits - dev; Leet Rauno Lember - project manager.

10. Radio Debugger. Helps RF radio end-users to detect and identify problems with comms in real time. Team: Henri Hunt - idea; Aimar Pruul - active military; Tarmo Aia - lead developer; Mirjam Petti - designer; Kaarel Allemann - developer; Martin Viidik - developer; Kristjan Vaariksoo - developer; Andreas Saltsberg - developer; Mallor Kingsepp - developer; Erik Amor- physical stuff; Oliver Tiit - physical stuff; Aleksander Parelo - physical stuff; Sander Sink - developer;  Henry Härm - developer.

11. Elephartinery.

12. Sentry Turret. A platform for the AT-4 anti-tank weapon to aim and fire it from a distance using your smartphone. Team: Kristjan Järvan - team lead; Joel Burke - biz dev; Kristo Palo - developer; Magnuss Karklins - developer; Priit Kallas - developer; Rain Vagel - developer; Silvar Laasik - designer; Tõnis Voitka - mechanical engineer; Arsenijs Picugins - electronic engineer.

14. Rapid Reloader. Automatic rifle magazine reloading system for use in battle for combatants on the frontlines. Team:  Raid Vellerind - engineer, Kristjan Türk - engineer, Marten Noorem - engineer, Jagnar Roosimägi - engineer, Mats Mikkor - pitcher, Abdullah Siddiqui - Developer, Kalev Mändmaa - Business mind.