Bar Talk: What history teaches us about Defense Tech
In defense, we are all students of history. Or we should be.
So when BlinkTroll set out to build products that matter on today’s battlefield, we hired one.
Alexander Fuhr Villata, a War Studies student at King’s College London, spent his internship with us studying how states, industries and innovation adapted under the pressure of war, from WWII to Vietnam to Ukraine.
Now he’s joining BlinkTroll Co-Founder and CEO Kenneth Skorpen, an engineer, veteran and weapons nerd, at the bar to share his findings and explore how understanding the past can shape the technology that wins in the future.
They’ll be joined by Olivier Schmitt, Associate Professor and Head of Research at the Institute for Military Operations, Royal Danish Defence College, and Senior Non-Resident Associate Fellow at the NATO Defence College. His new book, Preparing for War: Strategy, Power and Military Change has been well received in defence and strategic studies for its look at how armed forces adapt to new threats and technologies, and why some succeed where others fall short.
Why did Germany’s wonder weapons fail while the T-34 succeeded? How did the winning sides transform their industries and turn innovation into an advantage? What parallels can we draw with past wars, and what makes today’s challenges different? When should engineers listen to soldiers, and when should they trust their own judgement? And how do you build a defence company that delivers the right products at scale and stands the test of time?
BlinkTroll Co-Founder Øystein Hatlestad Hovland will moderate this exploration of defence tech history, asking what past wars can teach us about helping Ukraine win this one.
Questions, challenges and comments from the audience are more than welcome. We’re in a bar, after all, and no one comes to a bar just to listen.
Expect an hour of talk, debate and questions from the floor. After that, there’s light food on the table, cold beer at the bar, and the rest of the evening is for good conversations.
Bar Talk is hosted by BlinkTroll as a side event to Danish Defense Tech Week 2026, organised by Defense Innovation Highway (DIH) and European Defense Tech Hub (EDTH).
Who’s coming?
We’re bringing the defence ecosystem together in one room: companies and startups, current and former soldiers, allies, curious minds and some of the sharpest next-gen developers we know.
Why a bar?
Conversations about defence usually happen behind closed doors. But defence and security concern all of us, so we’re taking this one out of the usual meeting rooms and into a bar in central Odense. In a private room, of course.
Registration & security
Participation is free, but places are very limited. All registrations are reviewed by the organisers, and registering doesn’t automatically guarantee a spot. For security reasons, we’ll only share the exact venue with confirmed participants. The Venue will be somewhere in Odense City Centre.
Please note that while our room is private, the bar itself is open to the public.