The AthenaLab Foundation for International Relations and Defense is an independent, non-profit organization, a laboratory of ideas and analysis of international relations, security, and defense, which brings new approaches and tools to today’s strategic and geopolitical challenges.

It seeks to provoke, confront, illustrate, generate debate, promote critical thinking, excite, educate and inform the specialized public and the general public in the field of public policies and strategies, as well as practices of international relations, security and defense, in order to contribute to the elaboration, monitoring and improvement of the processes of international relations, security and defense, This is important for strengthening the country’s international insertion in order to promote the interests of the nation and help Chile position itself both in the region and on the global stage.

In five years of operation, it has produced multiple working papers, books and studies, in addition to holding meetings and interviews with leading international analysts and the diplomatic world to discuss current issues. With a strong focus on training young leaders, more than 280 alumni have participated in workshops designed to understand security, defense and international relations, many of whom are now in relevant and leading positions at the national level. It has also contributed, in a cross-cutting manner, in the formulation of public policies, advising all those who require its opinion and support.

In the specific field of defense, among other things, AthenaLab participated in the gestation and planning of the AVANTE Challenge, an open innovation initiative, which seeks to solve operational problems detected by the Navy through scientific-technological based ventures that can become sophisticated suppliers of the defense sector and also of the civil market; and it is in this context that it is part of the 2022 version of Exponaval where it was convened to present part of the experience in this project, as well as to highlight the importance of shipbuilding and the defense industry in general.

Additionally, for the Exponaval 2022 International Congress, AthenaLab invited relevant panelists such as the expert in maritime issues and professor at King’s College London, Alessio Patalano, who took advantage of his participation in the Fair to meet with academics from the Navy and Universities of the Valparaiso region. Likewise, the outgoing Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Australian Navy, Vice Admiral Michael Noonan, was invited to participate in Exponaval, where he presented his vision of maritime security issues in the region.

This year at Exponaval, AthenaLab will present the work done since its origin, especially in recent years, which has been focused on relevant issues such as current conflicts in development, a geopolitical update of extreme areas of the national territory that involved intense field work throughout the country, Antarctic issues, public safety, illegal economies and those related to the maritime field such as shipbuilding, “maritime domain awareness” and proposals for a maritime security strategy, among others.