- EDW 2026 Defence Industry Symposium
- 22-september
Narrative
The symposium, held as part of Estonian Defence Week, brings together Estonian and allied defence industry policymakers, investors, and end-users, as well as defence and internal security partners. The aim is to identify opportunities and accelerate real cooperation projects, investments, and potential business agreements.
The 2026
Focus is on three closely interconnected axes: developments in autonomous systems, the space domain as the “backbone” of next-generation capabilities, and defence industry readiness for growing demand.
The core question of the symposium is: how to integrate autonomous technologies into future capability development and space technologies into defence capability that moves from rapid prototype to production and on to the end user.
Opening Block: Strategic Framework (Creative Hub, Blackbox)
AI in the Defence Industry (Creative Hub, Blackboxl)
Intro speech & firesite chat
Topics:
- verification/validation,
- standardisation/interoperability,
- integration with NATO systems,
- data sharing.
Lunch in the food tent and in Õuetorn.
This panel looks at the gap between defence ambition, procurement reality and private capital. Investors, growth funds and financiers will discuss what they actually need to see before backing defence-tech companies, how they assess long sales cycles and limited domestic demand, and whether small-state defence suppliers can scale independently or are ultimately destined to become part of larger primes.
Estonia will spend 5.43% of the GDP on defence in 2026, with 37% of the 2026–2029 budget going to procurement and another 25% to ammunition. Very little of it will land on an Estonian balance sheet: the large programmes are led by foreign primes, leaving domestic firms to supply software, sensors, electronics and autonomous functions. The domestic industry, possibly crossing €1B this year, is structurally built to sell everywhere except at home. Into that gap walk the investors: venture funds that need a single position to return the whole fund, growth funds that cannot write a cheque under €20 million, and banks that will not lend against a ministry’s intention to buy something in 2029.
Space in Defence (Blackbox)
- Regional industrial cooperation: how to bring foreign partners to Estonia/Nordics and Baltics to manufacture/develop.
- Investor perspective: defence technology funds, risk, growth, procurement and export logic.
- Integrating innovation into the defence industry: from problem to integration.
- What measures accelerate industry-government cooperation?: the goal of changing defence procurement principles must be flexibility, speed, and supply chain security.
- How to involve industry in capability development from the start?: Cooperation must take place already in the early stage of capability development.
Moderated discussion with Teele Kaljuvee
Main Sponsor
Sponsors
Supporters
Join us at Estonian Defence Week (EDW)
The Creative Hub (Kultuurikatel)
Kursi tn 3, Tallinn