At the annual TIDE Hackathon, Allied Command Transformation will bring together young, enthusiastic coders, engineers, architects, Information Technology experts and yes, hackers – to infuse energy into NATO’s complex interoperability challenges.
Allied Command Transformation, as NATO’s Strategic Warfare Development Command, has developed the TIDE Hackathon to innovate and to promote the idea of federating “Interoperability by Design” between the NATO Alliance, its Partner Nations and Non-NATO Entities.
TIDE Hackathons address future needs by applying a proven hackathon format to engage diverse groups of experts in a competitive and highly intensive work environment, over a limited period to focus on specific challenges related to interoperability and to develop innovative solutions that provide a deeper understanding of the impact that emerging and disruptive technologies have on federated interoperability.
TIDE Hackathons also provide an opportunity for small teams to demonstrate and improve their skill, facilitating rapid experimentation and collaboration, and to learn more about the challenges facing NATO. While they do not replace the traditional capability development process, these events can incubate innovation and accelerate warfare development.
Winning teams are awarded prizes and invited to demonstrate during other Interoperability Continuum events: TIDE Sprint and the Coalition Warrior Interoperability Exercise (CWIX).
The 2024 TIDE Hackathon, co-hosted by Dutch IT Command, will target three interoperability problems: Wargaming, Pharmaceutical Thesaurus, and Noisy Speech to Text; if developed and implemented, these solutions will directly benefit NATO interoperability.
The Wargaming challenge will invite participants to showcase their skills and creativity in developing a wargame simulator utilizing Large Language Models; the Pharmaceutical Thesaurus will challenge participants to develop a software application to translate formulary information and identify drugs and medications in a multinational mission context; the Noisy Speech to Text challenge will invite hackers to create a Speech-to-Text system capable of accurately transcribing audio communications, overcoming various types of noise pollution such as background noise, radio feedback or multiple speakers.
Previous winning solutions have addressed the enhancement of the navigational capabilities of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in GPS-denied environments, and contributed to the development of the Enablement Support Services, a modern military medical suite. The best solutions are tested and deployed within the NATO Enterprise and kept in the open source domain.