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Navy innovators of the future look at bright ideas for front-line operations

A Malloy quadcopter drone flies supplies into Royal Marines in Cyprus
16 February 2022
Sailors are now half-way through a 12-week course which will help the Royal Navy bring innovation to the front-line.

The Percy Hobart Fellowship was launched at the beginning of this year following the success of previous courses.

It gets the participants thinking about how the navy and wider defence can continue to embrace technology to provide solutions and improve the life of personnel.

While they have spent the first half of the course learning about how to put together project plans, identifying problems, thinking up designs and technology, they will now put their knowledge into innovation projects.

These will be pitched at the end of the course and could be implemented by the Royal Navy if deemed a good idea.

First up, on Innovation Day (today), they will present their solutions to problems to their peers and personnel from PUBLIC, the company running the course.

They will receive feedback which will help with their final pitch, which they will also get coaching for.

The idea of the Percy Hobart Fellowship came as the navy embraced innovation and underlined its commitment to being at the forefront of technology.

This has seen previous projects from the fellowship delivered and used on the frontline.

This year, the Fellowship also welcomed personnel from the Royal Air Force and US Navy.

The fellowship is named after Major General Sir Percy Hobart, a British military engineer responsible for many of the specialised armoured vehicles (“Hobart’s funnies”) which took part in the invasion of Normandy and other actions during World War 2.

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