Seven Canadian companies have been selected to take part in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO’s) Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA’s) pilot challenges, showcasing the depth of innovation talent and expertise across the country.
The seven Canadian companies chosen for the pilot are (in no particular order):
- Dynorotor Inc. (AquaGen Blue) – Energy Resilience
- Marine Thinking Inc. – Sensing and Surveillance
- McGuire Aero Propulsion Solutions – Energy Resilience
- Phantom Photonics – Sensing and Surveillance
- Ping DSP – Sensing and Surveillance
- Texavie – Energy Resilience
7. VanWyn – Security Information Sharing
These companies will refine their technologies and products designed to keep NATO populations safe and secure.
NATO DIANA works with leading researchers and entrepreneurs across the Alliance, helping them develop technologies to keep NATO populations safe and secure.
NATO DIANA is celebrating a key milestone by selecting 44 of the most promising applicants from across the Alliance to join its pilot challenge cohorts. The cohorts will embark upon a six-month intensive programme to develop their business into promising ventures. NATO DIANA brings together universities, industry, and governments to work with start-ups and other innovators to solve strategic dual-use security and defence challenges, growing a new generation of NATO innovators.
The 44 successful companies from across the Alliance have been assigned to one of the five accelerator sites chosen for the pilot programme: Tallinn, Estonia; Turin, Italy; Copenhagen, Denmark; and Boston and Seattle in the United States. Starting in January 2024, the companies will embark upon the programme which has been custom-designed for early-stage dual-use start-ups.
For the 2023 pilot challenge call, NATO DIANA focused on three areas:
- Energy resilience - providing resilient power in disaster or conflict;
- Sensing and surveillance - gathering information from underwater; and,
- Secure information sharing - providing trusted data anywhere.
Through a combination of seminars, workshops, and mentorship, the companies will gain a comprehensive understanding of the dual-use landscape and learn how to successfully navigate both commercial and defence markets. Simultaneously, they will have the opportunity to refine their technologies and products through access to NATO DIANA’s network of test centres, comprising over 200 world-leading technical testing facilities.
The most promising companies will then graduate to an additional six-month scaling programme of tailored support and additional grant funding. All of the innovators selected for the programme will help to maintain NATO’s technological edge by enhancing the Allied innovation ecosystem.
More information on the strategic 2023 focus areas can be found on NATO DIANA’s challenge programme web page (available in English only).
Additional information on NATO DIANA can be found on NATO DIANA’s website (available in English only).
The IDEaS team