THREE STUDENTS TEAMS IN THE FINAL RUN FOR THE CEREMONY OF THE FIRST EDITION OF THE ASSETs+ EUROPEAN DEFENCE CHALLENGE
THREE STUDENTS TEAMS IN THE FINAL RUN FOR THE CEREMONY OF THE FIRST EDITION OF THE ASSETs+ EUROPEAN DEFENCE CHALLENGE
On June the 21st, three student teams will be awarded for their 10-page essays the purpose of which was to answer the following question: Which technologies and technology bricks are particularly relevant for Europe’s sovereignty in defence and security? This event will close the first edition of the European Defence Challenge, which is one of the achievements of the ASSETS+ project[1], supported by the European Commission.
Launched on December 2020 with L. Mandl (Vice-president Sub Committee on Security and Defence, European Parliament), G. Darrieussecq (Minister Delegate to the French Minister of the Armed Forces), B. Schmitt (Director for Defence, ASD Europe) and E. Tsigaridas (DG DEFIS, European Commission), the European Defence Challenge is a competition open to all undergraduate or graduate students from all faculties in European Universities or other institutions dedicated to higher education.
During the first stage of the contest, the students were asked to share their vision on a topic by submitting a one-page note. Around 100 teams coming from more than 50 higher-education institutions located in 19 countries signed up. A jury involving academics and industrials selected 26 teams that moved on to the second phase of the contest. It started with a webinar with A. Lamassoure (Former Minister in France and former member of the European Parliament), N. Pirozzi (Istituto Affari Internazionali) J.-L. Moullet (Deputy Director General, CNRS) and A.-R. Ungaro (Defence Manager, ASD Europe) as speakers. The purpose of this webinar was to provide the teams with tools to further develop their ideas in order to draft a 10-page document. Each submitted paper was then assessed by 5 to 6 different reviewers.
Results will be announced during the Award Ceremony on June, 21st.
Contact: challenge@assets-plus.eu
[1] Funded within the framework of the Erasmus+ program, ASSETS+ is a European project that involve 30 partners from 8 different countries, including Universities, VET providers, companies, clusters, etc. It aims to implement a training offer that corresponds to the evolutions and challenges of defence in the future, with teaching methods such as project teaching, summer schools, challenges, e-learning, services that facilitate links with the industrial structure. The programs will focus on disciplinary fields linked to C4ISTAR issues, robotics, artificial intelligence (AI) and cyber security. See https://assets-plus.eu/
