International drone summit to be held in Riga in spring 2025
On Tuesday, 17 December, the Cabinet of Ministers supported a proposal by the Ministry of Defence to organise an international drone summit in Riga in May 2025.
The summit in Riga will bring together defence ministers, leading experts and defence industry companies from the member states of the international drone coalition to form a common platform for countries to agree on future drone deliveries to Ukraine, while also developing the drone capabilities of coalition member states.
"The International Drone Coalition member states have committed to dedicate almost 2 billion euros to drone capabilities of Ukraine. We will continue to join forces to provide purposeful assistance to Ukraine. At the same time, we will strengthen the capacity of the defence industry to innovate, increase production power and participate more actively in international supply chains," said Minister of Defence Andris Sprūds.
The cooperation format of the international summit will also facilitate a more active exchange of information on scientific research and innovation in the field of UAVs, providing opportunities for countries to organise future joint projects.
Riga Technical University (RTU) will be involved in the organisation of the summit, contributing 248 505 EUR to the event. The drone summit will provide an opportunity for representatives of RTU and other Latvian universities not only to establish contacts with the defence sector, but also to encourage the use of research potential in this industry.
The Ministry of Defence and the National Armed Forces have developed a good cooperation with RTU in recent years. In December 2022, the defence industry hackaton “Defence Makeathon Riga 2022” was co-organised to create an ecosystem for the development of new defence technologies. This year, a 24-hour hackathon "Drones for Ukraine" was held from 29 May to 30 May.
RTU also participated as a co-organiser in this year's “Deep Tech Atelier 2024” conference, bringing together more than 1000 participants. At the conference, RTU hosted the thematic stage "BioCosmic", dedicated to the interaction between space and biotechnology.
In addition, this autumn RTU, in cooperation with “Meta”, “IBM”, Tallinn University of Technology, University of Tartu and Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, organized the first Baltic hackathon dedicated to artificial intelligence “Baltic AI Hackathon”. Students from the Baltic States took part in the event with the aim of developing AI solutions to address various challenges regarding education, sustainability and other socially important matters.
MoD Military Public Affairs Department
Media Relations Section
Phone: 67335393
E-mail: prese@mod.gov.lv