ULOTC Hackathon – Overcoming the drone threat

Introduction

Yesterday, MilUX facilitated a hackathon for Officer Cadets (OCdts) from the University of London Officers’ Training Corps (ULOTC). The one-day hackathon brought together bright young minds to generate innovative ideas for protecting military users from the threat of drones.

The hackathon concluded with the OCdts presenting their thought process and solutions to a panel of judges. The best team was selected based on the understanding of the users, the problems, the creativity and innovation of the solutions, and their teamwork and collaboration.

Congratulations to Team DEWS with their idea of a persistent drone screen to detect and jam adversary drones to protect dismounted infantry.

Special thanks to Karl Eze, CEO of Point Zenith and Chair of Military Drone Racing, for bringing some equipment to demonstrate the threat. Karl is also an Army Reservist and Alumni of ULOTC.

Also, thank you to WO2 Julius Davidson of the Defence BattleLab for giving up his time to mentor the OCdts.

The hackathon was the idea of MilUX CEO, Matt Odell, who in his spare time is Officer Commanding A Company ULOTC:

“The Officer Cadets were set a challenge by Deputy Commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade to mitigate the drone threat. I thought this was a perfect opportunity to combine my jobs, introduce the cadets to Design Thinking, and have fun. It was great to have the wider MilUX team supporting the event, enabling the cadets to innovate and collaborate.”

A copy of Change By Design by Tim Brown was presented to each member of the winning team by the Commanding Officer, Lt Col Jono Mills.