Madam Chair, vice-chairs and honourable members of the committee, good afternoon.
Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this committee's work.
It's an honour to speak on behalf of NATO DIANA, the alliance's defence innovation accelerator for the North Atlantic.
For those not familiar with DIANA's program mandate, we exist to close the gap between emerging technology and military capability. Established in 2022, we identify innovators developing breakthrough dual-use solutions and accelerate their adoption, leading to real capability advantage for our soldiers, sailors, aviators, special operators and other security-related entities across the alliance.
NATO DIANA provides a structured alliance-wide pipeline that connects innovators, test environments, trusted capital and end-users, ensuring that promising solutions move from idea to testing, validation and operational use. In collaboration with other NATO entities, we identify priority defence and security needs and communicate those to the industry in the form of problem statements. Solution proposals are rigorously vetted to determine those with the greatest potential. Following national security reviews, those selected receive framework contracts and enter our defence focus accelerator program. This includes curriculum delivery through our network of 16 accelerators—