Cybersecurity, health, logistics, students imagine their role in the event of conflict, a reflection to prepare young people for the crises of tomorrow

It is within the framework of the inter-allied, joint and interministerial exercise ORION 2026 that the Joint Staff of the Northern Defense and Security Zone organized a hackathon on March 27 and 28, 2026 in the St Ruth district of Lille. An immersive hackathon during which around a hundred students imagined concrete solutions to contemporary threats.

Orion 2026 is a large-scale Joint, Interallied and Interministerial exercise, which aims to demonstrate that France is able to absorb a shock and in particular a high intensity war. As part of this event, and this is a first in France, the Orion Jeunesse 2026 hackathon, which brought together young students between 18 and 25 years old, is part of a broader reflection on the place of citizens, and in particular youth, in the defense and resilience of country.

“L’idée, explains the General, Anne-Cécile Ortemann, military governor of Lille, it is that young people take charge of their future. We gave them a mission, so that while remaining in their role and their status as students, they think about what they could do, faced with a crisis or a war? What would their place be in the event of a conflict?”

Far from classic military exercises, this hackathon is based on a simple principle: defense does not only concern armies. It also involves civil society

For Colonel Stéphane, youth have a key role to play in this collective resilience. “Today, crises are hybrid. They affect digital technology as much as information or logistics. Armies train to manage crisis and conflict situations, including major conflicts, through large-scale exercises. But it is also certain that since the end of the Second World War, we have never been confronted with a massive influx, for example, of war wounded. There was of course the covid crisis, but it is completely different to manage traumatized people, and injured people who would arrive by the dozens, hundreds, even thousands. The appetite that these students may have, particularly for new technologies, allows them to offer us solutions or ideas, which we would not yet have completely thought of or developed to face the reality of a conflict of this kind.

This is the case, for example, of students who worked on the health center. The latter mentioned the possibility of using Fablabs to make prostheses for soldiers and civilians injured during a major crisis or conflict.

For their part, students from the disinformation center proposed a tool to qualify the veracity of information on Instagram.

Divided into multidisciplinary teams of 8 to 10 students, the participants, from universities and major schools in the Lille metropolitan area, worked without interruption from Friday evening to Saturday evening.

Supervised by young reservists, they explored several key themes: cybersecurity, economy, health, logistics and the fight against disinformation with a clear objective: transforming ideas into operational solutions, within a limited time frame, to strengthen national cohesion in a major crisis situation.

A scenario similar to crisis management units for Emmanuelle, a psychology student: “The goal is really to be productive, while really putting ourselves in crisis conditions, a little stressful, a little scary, we are timid, we have to produce something quite incredible, since we are going to be exposed to a somewhat strict jury.”

An enriching exercise for engineering student Sylvain: “We learn to decide quickly, with little information. CIt’s a way to think about subjects that go beyond our scope of study, that put us in a concrete situation, very close to current events, even if it’s a fictitious exercise.

For 24 hours, like marathon runners, these students agreed to live the daily life of the military, a short night and fed with combat rations: it’s very caloric, Juliette explains to usour rations are renowned throughout the world… raisins, protein bar, isotonic bar, there are 3500 calories in each box, this allowed us to last all night, and to be able to concentrate and think well for the hackathon.

Constant debates with a demand for immediate results, over the hours, ideas become clearer and projects take shape, driven by a strong collective dynamic, and an immediate impact for the participants, “we become aware that crises are not abstract. They can happen, and we can act at our level.” Guillaume tells us.

The experience quickly goes beyond the academic framework. She becomes human. Teams come together, ideas evolve, solutions take shape.

Crisis management applications, anti-disinformation platforms, emergency logistics systems: the proposals are intended to be pragmatic, presented before a jury, made up of civil and military personalities.

In terms of logistics, the students imagined a “marketplace”, to collect the logistical needs of the armies in the event of a crisis, which could be covered by private services (voluntary citizens, voluntary companies) with dedicated access for citizens/companies who wish/can respond to them.

In the field of cyber defense, the creation of a Cyber ​​Student Volunteer Corps was mentioned. These cyber students would receive additional training to be integrated into the CVCE and would be made available, part-time during their studies, to train young people at school on the fundamentals of cyber defense and to support state services in the event of conflict.

For the economic sector, the establishment of a voluntary student body would make it possible to meet the needs of professions in shortage in the defense industry. These students could devote a number of days per month to supplement or strengthen the workforce of defense industrialists.

“What interests us is not the theory, but the operational“, recalls a member of the jury.

And for General Anne-Cécile Ortemann, military governor of Lille “It’s important to be able to empower students, they are our future. And since they are not military, they will think differently. They see the world in a different way, which makes us think. This way of looking at the subject from other angles, in a way that may even be orthogonal to what we could have imagined, is what interests us. If we took up the profession of arms, it is also to protect our nation. But there are also other ways to protect your nation. And that’s also what it’s important to explain to them.”

Think together, propose solutions, discover the army, a hackathon, a real space for collective innovation where over the course of a weekend, these students not only imagined solutions, but experienced, in almost real conditions, what it means to face the unpredictable.