We brought ThunderEye to Kaunas University of Technology's Technorama 2026 — and left with two awards, a packed schedule of follow-up meetings, and a lot of momentum.
We Went to Show Our Tech. We Didn't Expect This.
On May 27th, our team was at Santaka Valley for Kaunas University of Technology's Technorama 2026 — one of the region's leading deep tech showcases. We were there to present ThunderEye, our passive drone and bird detection system that builds a real-time 3D voxel map of airspace using optical cameras and AI, with no active emissions and no GPS dependency.
We expected curious visitors and good conversations. What we got exceeded that by a wide margin.
The booth drew a steady flow of people — engineers, researchers, investors, and students — who didn't just glance and move on. They asked deep, specific questions about how ThunderEye works, where it fits in real-world defense scenarios, and what's next for the system. That kind of engagement tells us something important: the problem we're solving resonates.
Two Awards We're Proud Of
The real surprise came on stage. We were honored to receive the Best AI Application award, presented by the SustAInLivWork Centre of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence in Sustainable Living and Working. It's a meaningful recognition — ThunderEye isn't just technically ambitious, it's built to solve a real, urgent problem.
Before we'd finished processing that, we were called back up for the event's Grand Prize. We won't pretend we had a speech ready.
The Real Win: What Comes Next
Awards validate the work. What actually moves the needle is what happened after — a calendar full of scheduled meetings and concrete follow-ups with partners who want to go deeper. That's the outcome we care about most.
We're building ThunderEye to be deployable in contested, GPS-denied environments where traditional radar is either too expensive, too detectable, or too slow. Winning these awards is a signal that the broader ecosystem is starting to take that seriously.
A sincere thank you to KTU Startup Space for putting together an exceptional event, to everyone who stopped by our booth, and to our fellow presenters. We can't wait to see where this momentum takes us.