Who will be the winners?

The judges have spoken! The three finalists for the inaugural DisTec Challenge were chosen.

Hadean, multiSim BV and Ramp Global Technology battled it out in the competition’s Grand Final on Wednesday 27 January.

Watch the Grand Final on demand to find out who were crowned the winners.

Watch the Grand Final


 

 

In the Grand Final each finalist pitched their innovation and answered questions from the judges. This was accompanied by a keynote address from our guest speaker Brigadier General Dieter Kohl, German Army (Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, Innovation Champion).

Our judges then announced their overall winner, along with the recipient of the People's Choice Award, determined by you.

About the Finalists

Hadean

Hadean
Aether Engine

ARAIG

Ramp Global Technology
ARAIG - As Real As It Gets

MultiSIM BV

multiSIM BV
Aerial Refueling Simulator

Judge's Comments

Led by head judge James White (Executive Director, Defence Innovation Greenhouse), the judging panel features a selection of training and simulation experts from the private and public sectors as well as a representative from Shephard, our official Digital Media Partner.

From an initial shortlist of eight entries, judges graded each submission based on a series of innovation assessment criteria. The three highest scoring entries will now proceed to present their innovation in a live webinar format, with judges then crowning the overall winner. Click on each entry below to find out why these innovations made it to the final.

The ARAIG (As Real As It Gets) suit from Ramp Global Technology scored particularly highly on Feasibility and Viability, with judges recognising the technology’s potential to support other prototypes and applications.

The panel explained: “If the point of simulation is to prepare our troops for what they can expect in an operational setting, ARAIG is an excellent way to engage all of the senses and better prepare military personnel to operate in unfamiliar environments. It offers the opportunity to augment virtual training with physical experiences ranging from haptic feedback to 7.1 surround audio. This will assist defence establishments in attracting the next generation of soldiers, many of whom have grown up in a world dominated by point of view video games.”

Hadean’s Aether Engine received praise for its ability to impact military training on a large scale, especially when combining live, virtual and constructive simulation training.

One judge commented: “Creating high-fidelity, scalable, low-latency and widely-distributed simulations presents many technical challenges. These challenges will become even more apparent as we take these data-intensive simulations out of the lab and bring them to test ranges. Hadean has developed a set of technologies that will support scaling up these types of simulations fully leveraging existing cloud infrastructures. Their client list is very impressive and we think adapting their commercial technology for defence use holds great promise.”

multiSim BV’s aerial refueling simulator provided a compelling product with a clear military use-case built on an innovative and extensible back-end platform.

Judges summarised: “The product addresses a real-world problem in an elegant way that links both the operator of the refueling boom and the pilot of the aircraft to be refueled. What was most impressive though was the powerful combination of DSIM and DWorld back-end platforms upon which the simulator was built. We see significant opportunity for use of this technology as a foundation for other training scenarios in a number of areas.”

The Challenge also featured a People’s Choice Award, settled by a public vote. Both winners will received an exhibition stand at the next physical edition of DisTec, part of IT²EC, in 2022. 

About the Challenge

Judging Criteria

Watch the Grand Final