COcyber at GITEX EUROPE: Looking at dual-use innovation and what’s at stake for Europe

From 21 to 23 May, we took part in GITEX EUROPE in Berlin, an event that brought together key actors in digital policy, innovation funding, cybersecurity, and deeptech. Hosted at the EIT Digital booth, we used the opportunity to present COcyber, represented on site by our project coordinator Alessandra Zini, and connect directly with stakeholders working across civil and defence innovation.

One of the key moments was the visit of Luca Tagliaretti, Executive Director of the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre (ECCC), which co-funds the COcyber project. He expressed appreciation for the opportunity to see first-hand examples of applied innovation emerging from funded projects—highlighting the value of concrete, operational outcomes like the AI Cybersecurity Deephack.

COcyber was joined by Fahad Sohrab, who represented #TeamALVAR, the winners of our AI Cybersecurity Deephack held in April. Their solution – a lightweight, AI-powered framework for cyber risk detection – is a concrete example of what dual-use technology can look like in practice: civilian-ready, defence-applicable, and built around real-world needs. The system is sector-agnostic, focusing on modelling ‘normal’ behaviour across any environment to detect anomalies, regardless of the specific domain.

Alongside COcyber, the EIT Digital space hosted other scaleups and initiatives tackling European digital challenges, from explainable AI to digital workforce tools to access management infrastructure. The mix of actors made it easier to understand how cybersecurity solutions fit into broader digital frameworks, and how they interact with both policy priorities and market realities.

The feedback and exchanges at GITEX confirmed that the dual-use conversation is maturing. Many startups already working within defence frameworks expressed clear interest in Europe’s increasing commitment to this space. We also had the opportunity to meet the CEO of a locally deployed German platform with a similar mission to COcyber’s – a promising occasion to align objectives and learn from each other’s experience to enable collaboration built on real procurement and training needs.

We’ll carry forward the conversations started at GITEX, and continue connecting teams, institutions, and cyber innovation with deployment.started at GITEX, and continue connecting teams, institutions, and cyber innovation with deployment.