Defence Testbed Accelerator FAQs

The judging panel will include members of Digital Catapult’s Technology Teams, as well as programme partners from the MoD and NCC.

NOTE: All company names and personal names in applications will be anonymised before being shared with the judges.

Applicants should be aware of ‘Secure by Design’ principles and try to consider these in their approach to this programme. Applicants must also hold the Cyber Essentials certification. The connector layers should ideally allow for secure handshakes between the OEM nodes and developed platforms, although the overarching focus within the testbed will focus less on building in overt cyber security measures and more on testing functionality, viability, and proving the concepts of the new solutions are technically feasible. Future testbed work will likely look at cyber security as a specific area for exploration, but that is not a primary requirement for this testbed programme. As such, technologies like Post-Quantum Cryptography are expected to be out of scope for this stage, but we are open to applications that do incorporate this and are keen to explore all ideas available. 

As the first iteration of this testbed, we are focusing more on proving concepts, learning what works and what does not, and exploring the art-of-the-possible. As such, we do not require a specific focus on solution and/or infrastructure scalability. We hope that as the testbed grows there will be further opportunities to scale solutions, but that will not be a core requirement for this cohort.

No, we are open to all ideas and proposals for solutions to the challenges and look forward to receiving applications from companies across different sectors, technology domains, and areas of expertise.

As a testbed looking to explore new technologies and to build PoCs to prove innovative new ideas, the primary focus will be on testing functionality (i.e.: unit testing, etc) and performance, rather than any specific focus on security testing. However, the programme partners may wish for some degree of code review to take place as part of the final testing of the developed solution, but for this stage of the testbed, additional security testing will not be mandatory.

The MoD will be part of the overall programme steering group, to set and manage the aims and directions of the programme. They will also be involved in judging applications, as well as supporting reviewing the progress of projects.

The NCC will also be a member of the steering group and will also support judging applications. NCC will be building and hosting the testbed digital sandbox, working with OEMs & Additive Manufacturing SMEs to simulate the different systems that need to be end-points of the new solutions. They may also provide technical support for building connections into the testbed stacks (simulating the OEM systems)

Tier 1 OEMs (Thales, RBSL, Babcock, NP Aerospace) will also support the steering group, and provide light-touch guidance for Tech SMEs, to help them build and test their PoC solutions. The OEMs will share details about their TDPs and PLMs and will provide guidance on connectivity requirements, etc.

The OEM nodes stood-up on the testbed will be representations of some of the following:  
– Siemens Teamscenter 
– PTC Windchill 
– Dassault 3D Experience  
– Microsoft SharePoint

No, this programme will NOT require participants to give up any generated IP, nor will there be any requirements for Right of First Refusal from any of the programme partners. Participants will be expected to share learnings about their PoCs, but not licenses, or rights to their PoC or wider business offerings and services. 

It will be run at ‘Official’ classification. Applicants must be able to comply with this if selected.

The testbed will include nodes, representing simulations of the OEM databases / PLMs, which successful applicants will interface with. The data that will flow between these nodes and any solutions that get developed within the testbed will also be simulated, ‘dummy-data’ relating to the TDPs, but the actual specifics of any actual parts themselves.

No, prior experience within the Defence sector is not required, and will not form part of the application judging considerations. We encourage applications for companies with all types of backgrounds, experience, and expertise. 

The MoD and programme partners are primarily looking to explore what technologies can solve the challenges and offer the required functionality; specifically, that the relevant data and information can be identified and extracted from the nodes, and collated and made accessible in a central catalogue while ensuring data integrity. During the development phase, selected companies will be judged on their progress against their development plans, how close the developed solution provides the desired functionality, and how the participants capture and document their learnings. NOTE: as a testbed for exploration and innovation, we expect and understand that not everything may succeed. Organisations will not be penalised for this, as long as the learnings and insights are clearly captured and presented in a way that still brings value to the programme partners.

Yes, you may apply for multiple challenges, and you may submit multiple different proposals for the same challenge if you have various ideas. The application platform we use (Skipso) will require that different people from your team submit the different applications for the same challenge, but we will review all submitted proposals. However, you will not be able to participate in more than one PoC development challenge if selected. Digital Catapult will work with you to scope your development work if needed, but due to grant funding restrictions, only 1 set of challenge funding can be released per company for this programme.  

For applicants selected for interview, they will be held virtually across the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd October. Links to select a timeslot will be shared to those selected on Monday 13th October.