The largest English-speaking technological conference held in Ukraine, IT Arena, will gather more than 5,000 participants from all over the world this year. The event will take place on September 27-29. AIN is acting as the media partner of the event and talks about the program.

  • The discussions will focus on AI technologies, cyber security and green transition, while defense tech will be an overarching theme.

  • The agenda includes speeches by leading global experts, including Philippe Gilles from Gatewatcher, Dinkar Jain from Uber and Michal Kramarz from Google.

  • Particular attention will be paid to the development of defense technologies in Ukraine, where representatives of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and leading world experts in the defense industry will share their thoughts on the matter.

Startup competition

 

One of the main events of the IT Arena will be a large-scale startup battle, where 60 of the most promising Ukrainian startups will compete for a prize fund of $60,000 and the opportunity to attract investments. More than 100 investors are expected to attend the conference.

Another feature of this year's Startup Competition will be a large startup exhibition. Not only semi-finalists of the competition, but also other startups will be able to present their stands. This is another opportunity for dozens of technology teams to make their product recognizable, build strong business relationships and attract the first investments, according to representatives of IT Arena.

As AIN learned from the organizers, the startup competition collected 151 applications, of which 48 are projects in the field of Defense Tech. Among the 60 finalists in the startup competition, 30 will represent defense technology, while the rest will represent diverse industries such as AI/ML, SaaS, Healthcare, and more.

The organizers expect to attract investments for representatives of startups in the amount of at least $1 million. About 70% of the speakers will be foreigners, who will spend a total of more than 300 hours on the road.

Defense tech discussions

 

In terms of agenda, it is expected that at least 360 minutes will be devoted to the defense theme on the main stages, as well as two full days on a separate stage dedicated to defense technologies within the startup competition. The topics of cyber security and challenges and prospects of the industry will also receive significant attention — up to 50 profile meetups are planned.

In particular, the Editor in Chief of AIN Oleksandr Strelnykov will moderate a panel discussion on "Defense Technologies Today." Among the speakers are:

  • Brett Hush, senior vice president and general manager of Loitering Munition Systems AeroVironment, Inc.;

  • David Bonfili, co-founder of ACME General Corp and former CEO of BlackRock, Citadel and TwoSigma;

  • Monique Brown, former regional director for Southern, Central and Eastern Europe at Lockheed Martin;

  • Ivan Kaunov, co-founder and CEO of the Defense Tech startup Buntar Aerospace.