This article is more than 1 year old

UK govt to launch a tech creche for military-focused startups

British solutions for British problems! Say something like that

The UK's Ministry of Defence is to launch a “defence and security accelerator” for startups dabbling in so-called “miltech”.

A helpful MoD press release explained that the creche will be “an innovation hub that will accelerate ideas from conception through to application, against challenges that seek to maintain military advantage and protect the UK.”

Plans to establish the creche were announced in the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR).

One of the objectives set out in the SDSR [PDF, 96 pages] under the heading “Promoting prosperity” was to “maximise the scope for commercialisation of technologies developed for government national security purposes” – and, encouragingly, “explain the problems we need to solve rather than specifying in detail what the answers must look like.”

The idea behind the creche is to develop British solutions to Britain's military technology problems, rather than buying off-the-shelf tech or customising someone else's gear, and then flog the resulting products abroad.

Along with the usual meaningless startup-friendly gobbledegook about “incubating and experimenting with ideas” and “communicating with this network to inform and inspire”, the MoD says it wants to hear the views of the great unwashed about the project.

So, if you've any thoughts on how to operate a tech creche for miltech startups, feel free to send your ideas to innovation@dstl.gov.uk. Or you could, you know, leave the better ones in the comments below. ®

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like