At the 2021 Brussels Summit, NATO decided to establish a transatlantic innovation ecosystem to utilize advanced technology for defense and security. NATO’s Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) has now expanded its affiliated network of accelerators and test centers to over 100 sites in almost all allied countries, with the recent addition of 28 deep-tech test centers and two startup accelerator sites in North America. This significant development enhances DIANA’s capabilities in innovation and testing.
David Van Weel, NATO’s Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges and DIANA’s interim Managing Director welcomed these additions, stressing that “the diverse geographic locations of these sites will enable us to collaborate with the best and brightest innovators across the Alliance to design cutting-edge technological solutions to specific defence and security challenges.”
DIANA is set to launch its inaugural challenge programs in collaboration with various accelerator sites starting in the fall of 2023, subject to the finalization of contractual agreements:
- Tehnopol in Tallinn;
- Officine Grandi Riparazioni (OGR) in Turin;
- BioInnovation Institute (BII) in Copenhagen;
- MassChallenge in Boston;
- Pacific Northwest Mission Acceleration Center (PN MAC) in Seattle.
- A call for innovator-participants for DIANA’s pilot challenge programs will be issued in mid-2023. Up to 60 challenge awardees may be selected to participate. The number of challenges and awardees will grow each year until the program is fully operational in 2025. DIANA’s transatlantic accelerator (view latest sites map) and test center network (view latest map) will also continue to grow.
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