​​Time to Accelerate Defense Innovation in Africa 🚀

​​​Join us and 100+ hackers for the South African Defense Tech Hackathon on July 17-19, 2026, in Cape Town, South Africa 🦾

​​​Connect with fellow defense innovators, meet potential co-founders, and build projects with real-world impact that could save lives.

​​​We’ll bring challenges rooted in pressing defense and security problems, and you’re welcome to bring your own ideas.

​​​Throughout the event, you’ll get hands-on guidance from seasoned mentors—and after the hackathon, we’ll help you take your project closer to real-world deployment 🚀

​Challenges

​We’ll focus on solving urgent security and defense challenges in the African context — from protecting critical infrastructure and borders to resilient communications, GNSS-denied localization, low-cost sensing and tracking for autonomous surveillance, autonomous interception systems, edge AI, and reducing operator exposure in difficult operating environments.

​We’ll explore how Africa can build autonomous systems designed for realities on the ground: affordable, rugged, locally manufacturable, and deployable at scale to protect lives, critical infrastructure, logistics corridors, and remote industrial sites.

​​​​​Goals

​​​​​​​1) Solve urgent defense and security challenges: Each hackathon features a fresh set of challenges sourced directly from partners in Africa, the EU, NATO, and beyond—driven by real needs.

​​​​2) Launch new careers and companies: Whether you're breaking into the defense sector or building your own product and company, we connect you with jobs, funding, and pathways toward real-world deployment.

​3) Strengthen partnerships between Africa and Europe through defense innovation: By building and shipping real systems, we demonstrate what a fast, capable, and resilient African defense ecosystem — and strong collaboration with Europe — can achieve.

​​​Agenda

​​​Friday, July 17, 2026

​​​12:00 - Doors open, Networking

​14:00 - Workshop Session #1​

​15:00 - Workshop Session #2

​​16:00 - Workshop Session #3

​​17:00 - Presentation of Challenges and Mentors

​​18:00 - Start of Hacking, Team Formation & Networking

​​​Saturday, July 18, 2026

​​​Hacking all day and overnight

​​​Sunday, July 19, 2026​

​​10:00 - Testing of Presentations

​​​12:00 - End of Hacking

​​​Demo Day (Open to Visitors)

​​​13:00 - Pitches of the winning teams

​​​15:00 - Award Ceremony

​​​15:30 - After-party & Networking