Two of WHOOP's first 100 paying customers were LeBron James and Michael Phelps. The device built to optimize elite athletic performance is now finding a second calling in national security — and the story of how it got there says as much about military institutions as it does about the technology. Todd Stiefler, VP of Enterprise and Public Sector at WHOOP, joins Dr. Arun Seraphin at Emerging Tech Horizons to explain how a consumer fitness wearable became a force readiness tool, and what's still standing in the way of adoption at scale.

Learn more about WHOOP here: https://www.whoop.com/us/en/

SAVE THE DATE: 2026 NDIA Emerging Technologies for Defense Conference and Exhibition September 8-10, 2026, at the Walter E. Washington DC Convention Center: ndiatechexpo.org/

Be sure to follow us on social media for updates, early access to upcoming events, inside scoops, & more:

LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4htROo0

Twitter: https://bit.ly/48LHAx3

Facebook: https://bit.ly/47vlht8

And for more podcasts, articles, & publications all things emerging tech, check out our website at: https://bit.ly/47oA5K1

#ETI #EmergingTech #WearableTech

Hackathons are becoming an increasingly important tool in the defense innovation ecosystem. When designed intentionally, hackathons can work for everyone involved in defense innovation. In this episode of Emerging Tech Horizons, Dr. Arun Seraphin is joined by Nick Lanham, Chair of NDIA’s Data Analytics and Enterprise Platforms Division and Senior Data & AI Analyst at Kairos, and Charles Ott, Vice President and Solution Strategist at Maximus, to discuss NDIA’s hackathon model and what makes it effective.

The conversation offers a practical look at how this hackathon works: bringing together technologists, industry leaders, and government users for a focused, time‑boxed effort to tackle real defense problems. Rather than operating as a competition or a coding exercise, the hackathon is designed as a collaborative learning environment—one where participants share knowledge, test ideas, and better understand both user needs and institutional constraints. Lanham and Ott explain why this approach benefits everyone involved. Across the board, participants leave with a clearer picture of the problem space and stronger connections across the defense innovation community.

The episode looks back at NDIA’s inaugural hackathon, highlights what worked, and previews what’s planned for the upcoming event at the Emerging Technologies for Defense Conference. More broadly, it explains why thoughtfully designed hackathons are emerging as a valuable complement to traditional acquisition and innovation processes.

Learn more and get involved with this year’s NDIA Hackathon: https://hackathon.ndia.org/browse?status=upcoming

Read ETI’s brief on Hackathons as a defense acquisition tool: https://www.emergingtechnologiesinstitute.org/publications/brief-series/competing-for-capability

SAVE THE DATE: 2026 NDIA Emerging Technologies for Defense Conference and Exhibition September 8-10, 2026, at the Walter E. Washington DC Convention Center: ndiatechexpo.org/

Be sure to follow us on social media for updates, early access to upcoming events, inside scoops, & more:

LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4htROo0

Twitter: https://bit.ly/48LHAx3

Facebook: https://bit.ly/47vlht8 And for more podcasts, articles, & publications all things emerging tech, check out our website at: ndiaeti.org

#DefenseHackathon #DefenseInnovation #EmergingTechnologies #NationalSecurity

After more than four years of conflict, the war in Ukraine has produced an unprecedented body of data on rapid innovation, emerging technology, and the evolving role of drone warfare and unmanned systems on the modern battlefield. The pressing question for U.S. defense planners is which of those lessons can be translated to the U.S. way of war, and which, if applied too directly, risk misdirecting future force development.

In this episode, host Dr. Arun Seraphin is joined by Anna Kim, Associate Research Fellow at the Emerging Technologies Institute (ETI), and Matt Dooley, President and CEO of Fidelium and Chair of the NDIA Robotics Division, to discuss their ETI white paper, "Beyond Attrition: Interpreting the Limits of Lessons from Ukraine for Future US Force Development." The paper examines what full integration of drone technologies, autonomous systems, and emerging military technologies into the U.S. Joint Force would actually require.

The conversation explores why Ukraine's battlefield innovation and drone-driven "iteration under fire" model cannot be copied wholesale into the U.S. statutory and industrial environment, the enduring importance of combined arms warfare, and why the future force depends on integrating attritable unmanned systems with legacy maneuver platforms rather than choosing between them. Kim and Dooley also discuss the Army's Transformation in Contact (TiC) and Human Machine Integrated Formation (HMIF) initiatives, Project Convergence, and the Pentagon's Drone Dominance program, along with the production, sustainment, and training challenges of fielding robotic, autonomous, and emerging technology-enabled warfare capabilities at the scale a future fight will demand.

Read ETI’s White Paper "Beyond Attrition: Interpreting the Limits of Lessons from Ukraine for Future US Force Development": https://www.emergingtechnologiesinstitute.org/publications/brief-series/beyond-attrition

Learn more about NDIA's Robotics Division: https://www.ndia.org/divisions/robotics

For updates on our content, sign up for our weekly mailer: https://www.emergingtechnologiesinstitute.org/sign-up

SAVE THE DATE:

2026 NDIA Future Force Capabilities Conference & Exhibition, June 8–10, 2026, at Caesars Forum in Las Vegas, NV — where Anna and Matt will continue the conversation: https://ndiaffc.org

2026 NDIA Emerging Technologies for Defense Conference and Exhibition

September 9-10, 2026, at the Walter E. Washington DC Convention Center: ndiatechexpo.org

Be sure to follow us on social media for updates, early access to upcoming events, inside scoops, & more:

LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4htROo0

Twitter: https://bit.ly/48LHAx3

Facebook: https://bit.ly/47vlht8

And for more podcasts, articles, & publications on emerging technology, check out our website at: ndiaeti.org