AWS European Defence Accelerator 2023

The AWS European Defence Accelerator is a four-week technical, business, and training accelerator opportunity open globally to startups that are interested in supporting business in the defence sector across Europe. Eligible startups must seek to address and deliver mission-critical solutions for land, air, maritime, space, or cyber domains. A cohort of 15 startups seeking to use AWS to help solve the biggest challenges in the defence industry will be selected to participate in the 2023 programme.

Selected startups will be eligible to receive AWS computing credits, potential proof of concept opportunities, specialized AWS training, mentoring from defence and national security domain and technical subject matter experts, business development, go-to-market advice, and investment guidance. The program also offers opportunities for defence and national security leaders to mentor startups on topics ranging from defining their business models to showcasing their solutions’ business value.

The programme will bring in defence industry leaders to collaborate with startups on topics ranging from defining business models and POV exploitation. It will also facilitate collaboration opportunities with AWS customers and members of the AWS Partner Network looking for innovative defence solutions.

Startups do not have to have previously worked with defence customers. We welcome companies at all stages, from seed to pre IPO.

Our focus

Our emerging and disruptive technologies focus areas include, but are not limited to:

Energy resilience

Solutions that focus on preserving and maintaining energy resource availability for the execution of defence missions in the event of deliberate or non-deliberate disruption, including support for measures of preparation, mitigation of impact, adaptation, or resumption of activities.

Secure information sharing

Solutions that harness commercial cloud to assist defence customers to maintain the integrity, availability and confidentiality of operational data, from tactical to strategic levels of command, for enhanced delivery of joint effects.

Sensing and decision making

Solutions that provide for timely, accurate surveillance, collection and dissemination of observations, in both physical and digital domains, using artificial intelligence and machine learning, for purposes of battlespace management, shared situational awareness and operational forecasting.

Quantum

Solutions that provide operational advantage through the exploitation of high performance compute for improved mission effectiveness, resilience and accelerated decision making for an agile, resilient and responsive force.

Cyber resilience

Solutions that support cyber security and privacy enhancing data technologies, in order to provide multi domain integration of air, land, maritime, space and cyber assets from the tactical to strategic levels of command.

Dates

• Applications due: 15 May, 2023
• Week Zero: 5-7 September, 2023
• Accelerator Programme: 25 September – 19 October, 2023
• Demo Day: 16 November, 2023