Smart Munitions and Autonomous Strike Drones: Expanding Europe’s Precision Firepower

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• Guest speaker
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  Jakob Breiner Warheads Technology TSO @ NATO Munitions Safety Information Analysis Center

  Jakob Breiner became MSIAC's Warheads Technology TSO on September 2023. He earned a Mechanical Engineering Diploma in 2013, focusing on fracture mechanics and metallic material failure. From 2014 to 2017, Jakob pursued a PhD at RWTH Aachen, researching the impact failure of ductile cast iron, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. In 2017, he joined TDW Warhead Systems as Technology Study Manager, serving as the national Systems Engineer for the SSKW Phase II Project (US/IT/GE MoU). Jakob contributed to over 14 patents in the warhead and safety/arming domain and received several Best-Patent and Technology Awards from the MBDA Group. He is a member of the International Ballistics Society and the German Society for Materials Science.

• Guest speaker
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  Kateryna Bondar Wadhwani AI Center @ CSIS

  Kateryna Bondar is a fellow at the Wadhwani AI Center at CSIS. Previously, she advised the Ukrainian government on defense, finance, and innovation reforms. She was a 2019–2020 fellow in Stanford’s Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program and a senior project manager at PwC, overseeing defense ministry projects. From 2014–2018, she worked on national reforms under Ukraine’s president and finance ministry. Earlier, she was a financial control manager at Microsoft. She holds bachelor's and master's degrees in international relations from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.

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  Daria Yaniieva Board Member @ Defence Builder Accelerator

  Daria Yaniieva is an Investment Director at Sigma Software Labs, the corporate venture wing of Sigma Software. Because of her contribution to the development of the Ukrainian innovation ecosystem, Daria was selected as a finalist of EIT Red Kalyna Award, aimed at recognizing and spotlighting of Ukrainian women innovators and relevant organizations. Daria manages a portfolio of over 20 companies with a total investment of $2.2 million and actively participates in the development and promotion of the Ukrainian innovations ecosystem, judging startup events, mentoring innovators, and speaking at Ukrainian and global tech events, like London Tech Week, Association of US Army expo, Eurosatory, Drone Defence Forum, IT Arena, etc

• Team member
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  Hawa-Léa Sougouna Conference Manager @ COGES Events