EUROPE
27 May 21. Poland establishes consortium for coastal defence vessel programme. Poland has established a consortium consisting of the Polish Armaments Group and PGZ Naval Shipyard in its bid to procure three frigate-sized coastal defence vessels for the navy under its Miecznik (Swordfish) programme. The PGZ-Miecznik consortium will have the mandate to negotiate with the Miecznik programme’s contracting authority, the Inspectorate of Armament of the Polish of the Ministry of National Defence (MND). Launching the consortium is a milestone in the process of building frigates for the Polish Navy, said Sebastian Chwa?ek, PGZ Naval Shipyard’s president, in an official statement on 14 May. Plans to acquire a new class of coastal defence vessels for the Polish Navy have been repeatedly pushed back since they were first announced in 2012. However, in March the MND announced the launch of a new tender for the Miecznik programme, and defence minister Mariusz B?aszczak tweeted on 15 March that a contract signing was planned by the middle of the year.
The first company invited to participate in the programme was Polish Remontowa Shipbuilding, with subsequent invitations sent out to naval companies across Europe. The consortium has received six proposals from five potential bidders to date, each with technology transfer arrangements to local shipyards. However, further details on these remain confidential. The vessels are expected to be built in the ‘1+2′ formula, with the first-of-class being assessed for potential improvements that can be incorporated on subsequent hulls. The first vessel may also be modified for future security requirements.
USA
26 May 21. Defense Office Brings Small Tech Companies Into Big League. The biggest U.S. defense contractors — such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics and Raytheon — provide many of the technologically advanced weapons and systems used by U.S. service members.
But there are thousands of other technology companies in the U.S., some large and many quite small, with big ideas and capabilities that have never had the opportunity to contribute to the nation’s defense, even though the idea may appeal to them.
In March, the Quick Reaction Special Projects program, which is part of the Rapid Reaction Technology Office within the office of the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, published the “2021 Global Needs Statement.”
The Global Needs Statement — which is just one of several proposal calls per year that RRTO engages with small and non-traditional companies to incubate innovation by showcasing new ideas and concepts to a Defense Department audience — asks interested companies to provide their most compelling and innovative technologies and ideas in areas involving artificial intelligence and machine learning; autonomy; biotechnology; cyber; directed energy; fully networked command, communication and control; hypersonics; microelectronics; quantum technology; space and 5G communications.
Those technology areas are of great interest to the Defense Department and were spelled out in the 2018 National Defense Strategy; respondents to the Global Needs Statement aren’t expected to be the big players who usually get the government contracts.
“For this particular initiative … the vast majority of the companies that submit applications are companies that DOD doesn’t do business with on a regular basis or at all,” said John Lazar, RRTO’s Director. “We’re trying to bring in more companies that DOD either doesn’t know about or rarely does business with. We limit companies to 100 words on their applications to make it even easier to get their ideas in front of DOD.”
Working with DOD can be quite daunting or bureaucratically challenging for some small companies, which can have a chilling effect on engagement. It’s something RRTO can help with, Lazar said.
“Part of what our RRTO engages in, not just in this particular program but with many of our programs, is mentoring and teaching these businesses how to do business with the Defense Department,” he said. “We help them with white papers, proposals — whatever the DOD customer is looking for. We help them communicate.”
While the window for submitting proposals for the 2021 Global Needs Statement closed in April, more than 650 responses to the statement were received. A second needs statement is open through early June, and more will occur throughout the year.
RRTO will then read through the submissions and evaluate them with subject matter experts, finding the best of the best to bring forward to potential customers inside the Defense Department.
Then, Lazar said, DOD customers such as the military services, combatant commands and defense agencies will help decide which submissions they think have the highest potential for payoff.
“Those companies will then engage directly with those DOD customers … from there, it’s out of RRTO’s hands, and it’s between the company and that defense customer,” Lazar said.
The DOD customer will work with the company in question to further develop technology proposals that have been brought forward into products that can meet their needs, Pena said.
By the end of June, about 35 of the 650 companies who submitted proposals this year will have been selected to move forward with continued talks with DOD customers, and eventually, that number will be down-selected further. But the end result will be Defense Department access to new companies bringing ideas that might not have been seen before.
Last year, as part of the Quick Reaction Special Projects program’s “innovation outreach” effort, 1,600 companies responded to open-ended DOD needs statements.
In previous years, new companies such as FireEye (cybersecurity), MotionDSP (software and image processing), Saratoga Data (software/engineering), and Tectus (virtual/augmented reality) became DOD partners — joining the ranks of much larger defense contractors who for decades have helped meet warfighter needs.
With this latest Global Needs Statement effort, Lazar said, DOD once again hopes to bring on board new companies with new ideas that can provide even better tools to help service members meet the nation’s defense needs.
“What we’re looking for are highly innovative companies with new technologies that have the potential to provide leap-ahead capabilities against near-peer adversaries and fill gaps in critical joint mission needs,” Lazar said. (Source: US DoD)
21 May 21. Fincantieri dedicates all its US shipyards for Navy frigate orders. Fincantieri is to use all three of its U.S. shipyards to build new FFG(X) frigates and will hire 600 more staff by year-end to handle the work, a company official said following the U.S. Navy’s order for a second vessel out of a potential 10 in total.
The $553.9m contract for the second Constellation-class guided-missile frigate was awarded Thursday to Fincantieri Marinette Marine based in Marinette, Wisconsin. The shipyard has experience building Freedom-class littoral combat ships for the Navy.
As opposed to the LCS program, work on the new frigate will also take place at two other Great Lakes sites controlled by Italian parent firm Fincantieri: Sturgeon Bay yard Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding, which focuses on commercial shipping, and Green Bay yard Fincantieri ACE Marine, which specializes in aluminum vessels for the U.S. Coast Guard.
“With this step forward, we will keep pace with the program by building some sections [of the frigates] at Sturgeon Bay and Green Bay,” said Dario Deste, president and CEO of Fincantieri Marine Group.
The Navy picked Fincantieri last year to deliver the first Constellation frigate with options for a further nine vessels in a deal potentially worth $5.5bn to the Italian group.
The new ships will be based on Fincantieri’s FREMM frigate, which is already in service with the French, Italian and Moroccan navies.
Preparation will see a $200m investment at Marinette, where a new building will allow indoor construction of the vessels, while plans are underway for the construction of the largest ship lift in the United States. Smaller LCS vessels are currently side launched at the yard.
The staff count at the three yards will rise from the current 2,400 to about 3,000 this calendar year, said Deste, who predicts options for further vessels will be exercised once a year and then twice a year from 2023 or 2024.
The firm is now working on the detailed design phase of building the first-in-class USS Constellation, with construction due to start at the end of this year followed by delivery in 2026.
The contract marks Fincantieri’s debut as a prime contractor on a major U.S. Navy program after it partnered with Lockheed Martin for the LCS program. Lockheed took the role as prime for that effort.
Fincantieri CEO Giuseppe Bono has advocated that shipyards should be primes on naval programs and noted that the firm’s concept for the Constellation program has the advantage of being based on an operational vessel. (Source: Defense News Early Bird/Defense News)
21 May 21. Army: Proposals For Cruise Missile Killer Due June 4. In August, the Army will pick a single vendor to build the Indirect Fire Protection Capability (IFPC), focused on countering cruise missiles and larger drones. Later upgrades will add lasers and counter-rocket capability. The Army has completed a “shoot-off” between competing air & missile defense interceptors and is awaiting final proposals from the companies, generals said this afternoon.
Each competitor got up to three shots at live targets at White Sands Missile Range, said Maj. Gen. Robert Rasch, program executive officer for missiles & space. That followed “a year of learning” that began with high-fidelity computer simulations of how the competing interceptors would work with Army systems, then moved to hardware testing in Army labs and finally to the live fire shoot-off in late April and early May.
The crucial consideration for the Army: Not only must the interceptors be highly effective, they must work seamlessly with the service’s new missile defense command-and-control network, IBCS. (IBCS is expected to be a key part of the Army’s contribution to a future all-service Joint All Domain Command & Control meta-network as well). The shoot-off fed targeting data from a Sentinel radar through IBCS to the competing launchers.
The companies have digested the live-fire data and are preparing final, formal proposals. Those are due June 4. The Army aims to pick a single winner in August, Rasch said. That vendor will face the daunting task of delivering 16 combat-ready launchers and 80 interceptor missiles – what the Army refers to as “fieldable prototypes” – before the fall of 2023. That’s a test of the maturity both of the weapons system itself and the winning team’s ability to manufacture it quickly and affordably, Rasch said.
That initial version of IFPC will focus on countering cruise missiles and larger drones, which the Army has identified as the biggest “gap” in its current defenses when it came to a future conflict “with China [or] with Russia,” Rasch told reporters.
Later upgrades, circa 2026, will add the capability to counter lower-end threats, like the unguided rockets used en masse by Hamas in its recent conflict with Israel. Such “Rocket, Artillery and Mortar” (RAM) threats are considered a lesser danger, both because they’re less accurate and because the Army already has two systems designed to counter them: C-RAM, a modified Navy gatling gun used to defend forward bases, and Iron Dome, the Israeli system that intercepted 95 percent of targets in the Gaza conflict.
“We’re going to have to have a system that does more than RAM,” said Brig. Gen. Brian Gibson, director of Air & Missile Defense modernization for Army Futures Command.
Manufacturer Rafael says they’ve upgraded Iron Dome to deal with cruise missiles as well, and a modified Iron Dome’s Tamir interceptor, called SkyHunter, is the Raytheon-Rafael offering for IFPC. Other competitors haven’t been publicly disclosed, but our colleague Jen Judson reported one other: a Dynetics team using a ground-launched version of the AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missile.
Meanwhile, the Army is also developing a 300-kilowatt high energy laser, IFPC-HEL, as a complement to kinetic interceptors. (Source: Breaking Defense.com)
24 May 21. SOCOM seeks low-SWaP ESA for improved satcom capability. The US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) is pursuing a requirement to field electronically steerable arrays (ESAs) at reduced size, weight, and power (SWaP) and cost to support connectivity requirements around the world. Speaking at the virtual Special Operations Forces Industry Conference (SOFIC) on 19 May, US Army Colonel Joel Babbitt said how ESAs will facilitate satellite communications (satcom) by connecting ground users to satellite constellations in low (LEO), medium (MEO), and geostationary (GEO) Earth orbits.
“We’re interested in low-cost, low-SWaP electronically steerable antennas, specifically for satellite terminals operating in a number of [commercial and military] frequency spectrum bands including Ka and Ku,” said Col Babbitt, who serves as SOF Warrior program executive officer.
”We’re looking for terminals able to connect to LEO, GEO, as well as MEO satellites that are out there. There’s a number of capabilities that we’re looking to leverage. And we’d like to go after all three of those,” he added.
SOF Warrior is on the lookout for low-profile, manpack variants and vehicle-mounted applications measuring no more than the size of a laptop. ESAs must be able to automatically track satellites while on the move, irrespective of whether carried on the back of a dismounted soldier patrolling through a village or integrated onto a tactical ground vehicle moving across a desert. (Source: Jane’s)
21 May 21. USSOCOM launches MELB-X. The US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) has redesignated its Future Little Bird (FLB) concept as the Mission Enhanced Little Bird ‘X’ (MELB-X), service officials confirmed at the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference (SOFIC) on 19 May.
The FLB concept was first mooted by USSOCOM’s Program Executive Office-Rotary Wing at SOFIC in 2020 where Program Executive Officer Geoffrey Downer suggested the design could follow Light Attack/Assault A/MH-6 MELB Block 2.2, 3.0, and 3.1 upgrade packages.
At the time, Downer described how FLB would not necessarily comprise an AH-6/MH-6 configuration but could instead be a commercial variant of a slightly larger aircraft.
Addressing delegates on 19 May, Downer suggested the future viability of MELB-X would be heavily dependent upon the adoption of the US Army’s Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) by USSOCOM and specifically, the US Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.
“We don’t know which platform the army is going to select for Future Vertical Lift. There are a lot of decisions we have going forward. Maybe [MELB-X] is really just a placeholder for instant market options going forward. We don’t know whether or not we’re going to do a Block IV modification to do that configuration.
“Until then, the current aircraft that we’re flying will continue the legacy. We think that the best capability we have added to the aircraft over the years is how much more we’ve added. We have gone from four rotor blades to six, how much more can we add to that airframe? Are we getting to the end of that?” (Source: Jane’s)
REST OF THE WORLD
27 May 21. UK, South Africa collaborating on military asset disposal. The United Kingdom is collaborating with South African defence procurement agency Armscor to help facilitate the disposal of UK military equipment to potential customers in Africa.
Under a Framework Agreement signed in 2020, the UK’s Defence Equipment Sales Authority (DESA) will be able to leverage the commercial footprint of Armscor’s Defence Disposal Solutions to access potential new markets on the African continent.
Sales to potential customers would be on a UK Government to Armscor to African Government or UK Government to African Government basis. Upgrade and after-sales support activities such as repairs and maintenance are offered by Armscor as part of the agreement. It is understood that any sales through the framework agreement would still be subject to the normal scrutiny and assurance applied by DESA and export controls.
A variety of equipment was listed in a 2021 brochure including Airbus Helicopters Puma HC.Mk 2 and Aérospatiale Gazelle helicopters, Lockheed Martin C-130J transport aircraft, Britten-Norman (BN2T-4S) RMk2 Defender, Land Rover Revised Weapons Mounted Installation Kit RWMIK+ vehicles, Husky mine resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles, MAN Support Vehicle 6T, Scimitar class vessels, rigid raider craft, and small arms. (Source: Jane’s)
26 May 21. Naval Group tables $100m purchase plan for new subs shipyard.
The shipbuilding firm has invited local industry to bid for the delivery of $100m in equipment used at the new Attack Class shipyard in Adelaide.
Naval Group Australia has opened expressions of interest for the purchase of approximately 1,000 items from local suppliers, used at the Osborne Shipyard in Adelaide upon completion of a submarine hull qualification section in 2023.
Released via Naval Group’s Industry Capability Network portal (which includes over 2,000 businesses), the purchase plan, valued at $100m, includes both ready-made and custom-made tools and equipment.
Among the items to be purchased by Naval Group are:
* hand and machine tools;
* transport trollies;
* office equipment;
* welding machines;
* scaffolding;
* whiteboards;
* tanks, sumps and pumps;
* personal protective equipment;
* workshop benches, and
* a plasma cutter.
This latest proposal is in addition to the $900m local manufacturing package, which seeks tier-one Australian firms to deliver over 20 components used in the construction of the 12 Attack Class submarines.
Naval Group Australia CEO John Davis said the design and construction project would support local industry for the next 50 years.
“Australia’s Future Submarine Program is on the cusp of an exciting new phase, as a new and modern new shipyard rises from the ground and preparations for construction begin,” he said.
“The opportunity for Australian suppliers to get involved in this latest $100m investment in tools and equipment for the shipyard is significant, as we continue growing the local supply chain.
“We will be targeting this purchase to small and medium Australian businesses, and aiming to build long-term relationships that will continue throughout this multi-decade submarine program.”
Naval Group global CEO Pierre Eric Pommellet said the firm is committed to achieving local content requirements stipulated in the SEA 1000 contract.
“Ensuring that at least 60 per cent of the Attack Class contract value is spent locally will create hundreds of Australian jobs, for the long term, in new supply chains around the country,” he said.
“The local teams are working hard to build new supply chains, create sovereign capabilities and design a new and advanced submarine, which will be built for Australia’s unique conditions.”
Naval Group is expected to work alongside Australian Naval Infrastructure (ANI), which is overseeing the construction of the Attack Class shipyard.
Construction of the shipyard commenced at Osborne north in December 2018, and has since progressed to the development of the Platform Land-Based Test Facility, scheduled for handover to Naval Group next year.
The Platform Land-Based Test Facility will be used to verify and refine the performance of critical Attack Class submarine propulsion systems, testing the submarine’s main propulsion train in a controlled environment before inclusion into the overall platform.
Naval Group is scheduled to deliver the first Attack Class submarine in 2036, with final operational capability expected in 2054. (Source: Defence Connect)
25 May 21. Turkey to export T129 helos to Philippines despite block on Pakistani order. The Philippines announced Tuesday that it will receive two of six T129 Atak helicopters on order from Turkish Aerospace Industries in September. The president of TAI announced in April that his company had won U.S. export licenses to sell a batch of six helicopter gunships to the Philippines. But only a month earlier, Turkey’s persistent requests for the same export license to sell the same helicopters to Pakistan were going nowhere.
“Based on the latest developments, we are expecting the first two units of T129 attack helicopters for the Philippine Air Force (PAF) to be delivered this September,” Philippine Department of National Defense spokesperson Arsenio Andolong said in a statement. However, a source with TAI told Defense News the first deliveries are planned for November.
The department reported that two more helicopters will be delivered in February 2022 and the final two in 2023, with Andolong telling the official Philippine News Agency that the helicopters will cost $269m under a government-to-government contract.
The 5-ton T129 is a twin-engine multirole attack helicopter originally produced under license from the Italian-British company AgustaWestland and based on the A129 Mangusta. AgustaWestland is now Leonardo Helicopters following a name change; the company is Italian but has an operation in the U.K. The aircraft is powered by two LHTEC T800-4A turboshaft engines, each of which can produce 1,014 kilowatts of output power.
The T129s will be part of the Philippine Air Force’s 15th Strike Wing, whose pilots and crew will be undergoing training on the helicopter at the TAI headquarters in Ankara between May and August, TAI and PAF announced separately.
The aircraft will be the first dedicated attack helicopter operated by the Philippines, and the 15th Strike Wing will fly them alongside its MD530G light attack and Leonardo A109 armed transport helicopters. The country previously used its armed helicopters in operations against a number of insurgencies — with which it is currently contending — mostly on its southernmost islands where separatist and Islamic State-linked militants are active.
What’s the problem in Pakistan?
In March, Pakistan agreed to, yet again, extend a deal with Turkey for T129 Atak helicopters — a planned procurement riddled with delays. Top Turkish officials said TAI obtained a six-month extension from Pakistan.
In 2018, Pakistan chose the T129 to replace its fleet of AH?1F Cobra gunships that were acquired in the 1980s. Pakistan signed a $1.5bn contract with TAI for 30 T129 helos; however, the company first had to secure U.S. export licenses before delivery could take place.
The T800-4A engine for the helicopter is an export version of the CTS800 engine. LHTEC, the maker of the engine, is a joint venture between the American firm Honeywell and the British company Rolls-Royce.
The Turkey-Pakistan deal has been in limbo because of U.S. hesitancy to issue export licenses for the engine. The roadblock also comes amid Washington’s enduring opposition to Ankara purchasing the Russian-made S-400 Triumf air defense system. U.S. lawmakers have quietly frozen all major U.S. arms sales to the NATO ally to pressure Ankara to abandon the S-400.
A Turkish aerospace official previously told Defense News that the engine isn’t the only hiccup.
“There are other components the Americans can refuse to issue export licenses for,” he said. “We have the impression that the T129 deal would not go through without a political go-ahead from Washington.”
Separate from the engines, the Biden administration pulled back requests made to Congress to approve sales to Turkey’s defense procurement agency, the Presidency of Defence Industries, on which the U.S. imposed sanctions in December 2020 in response to the S-400 purchase. Honeywell withdrew the engine export request early last year, but then resubmitted it in August.
Defense News reached out to Honeywell for comment, but the company did not respond by press time.
How did the Philippines deal work out?
According to a top procurement official in Ankara, American export licenses “are not issued or denied for Turkey — in this case the maker and exporter of the weapons system. They are issued for the end-user country — in this case [for the Philippines], the engine export license was granted for the sale to the Philippines, not to Turkey [or TAI] as a blanket approval.”
U.S. lawmakers are concerned the engines for the attack helicopters could add to Pakistan’s ground-attack capability against India, with whom the U.S. has a strong defense and security relationship.
“Apparently the same U.S. concerns about Pakistan’s attack helicopter capabilities are not valid for the Philippines,” the procurement official said.
Though groups have called for an end to U.S. arms and military support to Manila as leverage to end systematic killings and other human rights abuse, the backing is expected to continue under the Biden administration. Furthermore, there’s reportedly a pending deal to authorize the continued presence of U.S. troops in the Philippines.
The U.S. State Department refused to comment for this story.
Will this set a precedent?
A similar case may be brewing about Turkey’s TB2 Bayraktar drones, built by the privately owned company Baykar Makina. In October, then-Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne announced that Ottawa suspended export permits of drone technology to Turkey, which was backing Azerbaijan during its conflict with Armenia.
Champagne issued the pause in exports alongside an order for his ministry to investigate claims that Canadian drone technology was being used in the fighting. The decision followed an announcement by disarmament group Project Ploughshares, which warned the multimillion-dollar exports of high-tech sensors and targeting technology produced by L3Harris Technologies subsidiary WESCAM in Burlington, Ontario, are in direct contravention of Canada’s domestic laws and its international obligations under the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, to which the Trudeau government acceded almost exactly a year ago.
WESCAM is one of the world’s leading producers and exporters of electro-optical/infrared imaging and targeting sensor systems — both of which are featured on the Bayraktar drones.
Baykar Makina has so far sold the TB2 to Ukraine, Qatar, Azerbaijan and Poland. The company is in talks to finalize an export deal for Morocco, hoping to follow the precedent set with the Philippine T129 order.
“Canada suspended the sale of electro-optical cameras to Turkey. This does not mean Canada will not allow Canadian-made cameras on a Turkish-made drone, with the end user being by the Moroccan military,” a Turkish Defense Ministry official said. (Source: Defense News)
25 May 21. Indonesia’s plan to procure Rafale fighters hampered by funding roadblock. The Indonesian Ministry of Defense (MOD) has made further progress in its effort to procure 36 Rafale multirole fighter aircraft from Dassault Aviation but a formal contract may be delayed by a lack of clarity over funding sources. In February, a delegation of senior Indonesian MOD officials led by Major General Dadang Hedrayudha, director general of the ministry’s defence potential department, completed the latest round of negotiations with Dassault Aviation’s vice-president for business development Jean Claude Piccirillo, and vice-president for offset Michael Paskoff. The negotiations, which largely covered offset and financing arrangements, went well, Maj Gen Dadang said in February. The MOD has since raised a request for the programme to be funded with foreign-sourced loans, ministry officials disclosed in March. However, a schedule of national projects that have been approved for foreign funding was obtained by Janes on 21 May. It confirms that Rafale programme has not been included. The schedule is published annually by the Indonesian Ministry of National Development Planning (Kementerian Perencanaan Pembangunan Nasional: BAPPENAS), and it spells out national programmes for which foreign loans can be obtained for the year. As such, given the lack of endorsement from the BAPPENAS, the bid to procure 36 Rafale fighters has not been gazetted by the Indonesian Ministry of Finance (MOF) as a defence procurement programme for the 2021 financial year. (Source: Jane’s)
24 May 21. Artificial Intelligence for Decision Making Initiative. The DST Group Artificial Intelligence for Decision Making Initiative is now accepting applications. The Initiative is a collaborative project between the Office of National Intelligence (ONI) and the Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG, to develop Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) expertise and capability in areas of significant importance to the Australian defence and national security community.
Individuals are invited to apply their skills and expertise to solve one of 10 AI and ML research and development related challenges.
Successful applicants will be provided with three-month funding of up to $20,000 per project and could also have the opportunity to be part of a national network focused on developing AI and ML technology. There is also the opportunity for project prototypes to be considered for progression through the Defence Artificial Intelligence Centre (DAIC), or defence and university sectors.
The Initiative is being delivered on a national basis through DSTG’s ADSUN network: the Defence Science Centre, Defence Science Institute, Defence Innovation Network, Defence Innovation Partnership and Queensland Defence Science Alliance.
Submitting your Application
Applications will only be accepted via the Initiative’s Application Form
Refer to our Frequently Asked Questions.
If you require other assistance or guidance to complete the application form please email . DST Group will respond to your email within two working days.
(Source: http://rumourcontrol.com.au/)
05 May 21. EoIs now open for Innovation Pitchfest at Land Forces 2021. Do you have a bright idea for the defence and security sectors with relevance to the Land domain? Register now for a chance to pitch your next big thing at the Land Forces 2021 Innovation Pitchfest.
Innovation Pitchfest is a dynamic and stimulating event where selected participants have the chance to present their latest science and technology ideas to Defence in the form of a short 3-minute pitch. The event is brought together by AMDA Foundation Limited, Defence Science Institute (DSI), Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG), industry and academia and is an opportunity to learn from rising talents in Australia’s research and development sector.
This year, to accommodate the current COVID-19 safety measures, Innovation Pitchfest will look a little different. Successful applicants, in lieu of live presentations, will deliver their pitches prior to the event via Zoom. Pitches will be recorded and stitched together to produce a virtual form of the typical Pitchfest. The compilation of 3-minute pitches will live on this page from 1 June 2021.
For further information and to register for a slot at the Pitchfest go to https://defencescienceinstitute.com/news
(Source: http://rumourcontrol.com.au/)