DIANA Deadline Approaches as NATO Aims High in Innovation
Earlier this week, NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) announced its 10 new challenges, inviting forward-thinking innovators of dual-use technologies to submit their proposals by July 11.
“DIANA is an initiative that is quite robust now,” said Massimo Artini, vice chair of DIANA board of directors. “It is something that NATO allies cannot do without.”
Aritini spoke at the annual TechNet International conference held in Brussels.
This year’s challenges are:
- Energy and Power
- Advanced Communication Technologies
- Contested Electromagnetic Environments
- Human Resilience and Biotechnologies
- Critical Infrastructure and Logistics
- Operations in Extreme Environments
- Maritime Operations
- Resilient Space Operations
- Autonomy and Unmanned Systems
- Data Assisted Decision-Making
“Technological edge is no longer a luxury or a marginal advantage,” Artini said. “It [is a] strategic necessity.”
DIANA, which was launched at a NATO Summit in 2021, gives innovators, startups, researchers and entrepreneurs an opportunity to match their skill sets with today’s operational needs.
What makes this initiative so unique, Artini explained, is that “it is not funded by public entities, but it’s based on a sustainability that comes from the commercial side.”
DIANA’s mission is not only to invest in technology but to also help innovators build valuable and resilient business models. “That means acceleration,” the vice chair continued.
The project’s first year began with the selection of 44 innovators, Artini shared with the audience. During the second year, 75 projects were supported across 70 accelerator sites.
Last year, more than 2,600 innovators applied. This year, the number of applicants is expected to double, Artini announced.
Initiatives like DIANA have allowed NATO to create a strong footprint in its contribution to the defense innovation ecosystem, said Nikos Loutas, director of innovation at NATO’s Innovation, Hybrid and Cyber (IHC) Division.
“They’re supporting the development of AI-enabled solutions but also solutions that use other technologies,” he stated. “What’s most important is that they’re allowing for the distribution of demand signals to our innovation environment on top [of] helping scale and develop new technological solutions.”
With technology, maturity, targets and money all readily available with such initiatives, the key component in the success of such projects and in ensuring security across the Alliance is the speed of adoption.
Therefore, Loutas spoke on the work that NATO allies are doing on developing NATO’s Rapid Adoption Action Plan. “This is something that will be discussed [at the June 5] Defense Ministers meeting. It’s up for endorsement, and what’s really important there is that through this action plan, innovation will no longer be on the fringes of military capability development, but innovation is actually now being really streamlined into our core processes, including NATO’s defense policy and planning process.”
TechNet International is organized by AFCEA Europe, AFCEA International's European office. SIGNAL Media is the official media of AFCEA International.
