The Estonian NATO DIANA accelerator got off to a stylish start with a well-attended opening event at Tehnopol

Teams from the second cohort of the Estonian NATO DIANA accelerator came to Estonia for their first time last week. The two busy days in a forest camp were followed by workshops in Tallinn and meetings with the local testing centres. The highpoint of the day was the evening opening event, which was attended by the media, expert mentors, investors, the government and the armed forces, and other groups involved in national defence. 

Opening speeches were given by Sigrid Rajalo, Director of the Innovation and Technology Department at the Ministry of Economic Affairs of Estonia, and by Mayor of Tallinn Jevgeni Ossinovski. 

“The private sector is the driving force for ground-breaking innovation in defence, and DIANA is the key to bridging the gap between the private sector and the military structures of the NATO alliance”, said Estonian Minister of Defence Hanno Pevkur in a video address. 

The NATO DIANA accelerator in Estonia is led by a consortium of the Tehnopol Startup Incubator working together with Sparkup Tartu Science Park, and both Anne-Liisa Elbrecht, the Head of the Tehnopol Startup Incubator, and Pirko Konsa, a member of the Sparkup Tartu Science Park board, spoke of the power of cooperation that the Estonian accelerator can harness as a partner. 

NATO DIANA Regional Director Kadri Tammai and Project Manager at the Challenge Team of DIANA Nourhan Ibrahim spoke about this year’s challenges and how the programme can affect the whole of the alliance. There were 2613 companies that applied to the accelerator for 2025, of which 74 were accepted, and seven of the successful applicants have come to the accelerator in Estonia. 

The seven superstars for 2025 are Scaleout, Factiverse, ResQuant, IS-Wireless, Microamp, Telearmy and Wayren, and they each gave an exciting three-minute pitch for their dual-use technologies, which demonstrated their potential by creating great interest in the subsequent networking discussions over a glass of bubbly. 

The presentation by CTO of Revobeam Łukasz Kulas was particularly special because it shared some experience of the process, as Revobeam was part of the first cohort in the NATO DIANA Estonian accelerator and has moved on to the second phase of the programme. 

The official part of the evening ended with a discussion of funding, needs, and testing in the defence sector by a panel comprised of CEO of Frankenburg Technologies Kusti Salm, CEO of SmartCap Sille Pettai, and Special Advisor for Defence Industry Development at the Ministry of Defence of Estonia Indrek Sirp. The discussion was chaired by Liisu Lass. 

The teams will meet again in February at a defence industry meeting in Poland that will be attended by all the teams in the NATO DIANA accelerator in 2025 from across the whole alliance. In the time between the meetings in person, the teams will have to attend virtual sessions and participate in regular meetings with their dedicated mentors. 

The full gallery from the opening event can be found here.