UPDATE: The Meetup has a new home.

I’ve got some news as I can’t sit on the fence any longer in light of the geopolitical developments.

I’ve been searching for ways to get involved, to meet and connect with likeminded people who also wants to do more than to silently observing our European values, democracy, and security eroding, people who want to get involved, people who actively want to do something.

However, I couldn’t find anything – so I’m starting the Defence Tech Meetup – I hope to build a community of people willing and able to contribute to protecting democracy, European values – our future – by helping to build the next “Made in Europe” defence technologies in any shape, way, or form.

This is for doers, hackers, developers, founders, tinkerers, engineers, builders, and people of all sorts to meet and find the people you need to build it with, find other ways to contribute, find real actual problems and needs to build solutions for.

In short, the goal is to gather like-minded people to create a community where you’ll find whatever you need to get involved – and once you’ve gotten involved, that it will serve you as a place for help and inspiration to help keep you going.

I hope it can also serve – in a very modest way – to help make building defence technology in Europe, for Europe and our allies, gain the urgency, attention, recognition and respect it deserves (especially in Germany, where for obvious historical reasons the defence industry has been a controversial and touchy subject).

Get in touch if you want to start a Defence Tech Meetup yourself – wherever you are. I’m happy to share resources and contacts, help you set it up and get it going. After all, this is an idea, it’s not about a specific person or a specific place. The more, the merrier. It’s all open source and free – take it and run with it.

Meetup #1 is already scheduled for May 14th 1830 hrs CET at STARTPLATZ Düsseldorf and the first speakers are already secured:

Speaker 1: Stavros Messinis (Greek, founder “Smart Flying Machines”, exit to Delian Alliance Industries, formerly Lambda Automata)on founding a defence tech startup to exit in less than two years.

Speaker 2: Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP (Orrick, one of Europe’s Leading legal firms for innovation & technology) on “How to stay out of jail (when building defence tech in Germany)”.

How can you help? If this is for you, register with the Meetup group and show up for the meetups! Not for you? Help get the word out, share this publicly wherever you think appropriate, feel free to forward to companies, organisations, individuals you know this would resonate with – that would go a long way!

The Meetup Format

Introduction: New members introduce themselves, background, skills, complete with ask (what do you want out of the meetup) and give (what can you contribute to the meetup), 60 seconds standup

Talk 1 (e.g. current challenge(s)/need(s), updates or perspectives, on premise or beamed in over Zoom, defence industry representative, NATO, national defence forces, frontline allies, analysts, authors, organisations on the ground, etc)

Q&A session with speaker(s), open mike, first comes…

Mingle & Network, intermission

Talk 2 (e.g. “lessons learned”, from defence tech entrepreneurs, engineers, industry, defence forces, elected officials, frontline allies, etc)

Q&A session with speaker(s), open mike, first comes…

Vote, show of hands: Are we doing this meetup again?

Suggestions, if yes vote, topics & speaker(s) for the next meetup, improvements, etc collected.

Mingle & Network, open end

All meetups are under Chatham House Rules: Anyone who comes to a meeting is free to use information from the discussion, but is not allowed to reveal who made any particular comment in public – unless explicitly allowed to do so.

No media recording allowed: Unless explicitly permitted by everyone captured on the respective media.

Let’s unite forces; Let’s meet up – see you there!

https://defensetech-inkubator.nrw/events