ELASTIC M28 Technical Meeting — Belgrade, 16–17 June 2026

16–17 June 2026 | Belgrade, Serbia | Hosted by Zentrix Lab

In mid-June, the ELASTIC consortium came together in Belgrade for its M28 technical meeting — two intensive days of hands-on work, live demos, and in-depth technical debate, as the project enters its final stretch ahead of the conclusion in February 2027.

The meeting was hosted by our Serbian partner Zentrix Lab. After months of weekly remote calls, being in the same room again made a tangible difference — conversations moved faster, decisions were made on the spot, and partners could roll up their sleeves and work through problems together in real time.

Two Days, Three Tables, One Goal

Belgrade was not a reporting meeting. With roughly eight months left and the final review approaching, the consortium came with a clear purpose: to tackle the hard technical questions still standing between the current state of the project and a compelling final demonstration.

The format reflected this ambition. Three parallel round tables ran simultaneously throughout both days, each focused on a different cluster of technical challenges, while joint plenary sessions brought the full consortium together to align on KPIs, key decisions, and next steps. It was busy, productive, and exactly what the project needed at this stage.

What Was on the Table

The breadth of topics covered reflects how far ELASTIC has come — and how much the different threads of the project now need to come together.

Secure orchestration and WebAssembly dominated much of the agenda. Partners worked through how security policies are expressed and enforced across the system’s orchestration and runtime layers, and how the project’s lightweight security components plug into the Propeller orchestration framework — a critical integration for Demonstrator 1.

Hardware-accelerated encryption and data protection brought together two complementary workstreams: edge-device cryptography and transparent data-at-rest protection within the WebAssembly runtime. By the end of the session, the two teams had agreed on a shared integration architecture and a set of concrete milestones toward a first working version.

AI-powered intrusion detection was both demonstrated and debated. The session covered how the AI component fits into both demonstrators and, importantly, how to make its AI contribution genuinely visible and measurable — through dynamic model retraining rather than static detection alone.

Remote attestation, confidential computing, and workload migration featured across both days. Partners worked through the security properties of the attestation flow, resolved an important design question around workload identity, and agreed on how the migration protocol integrates into the orchestration layer.

Federated learning, machine learning in WebAssembly, and hardware abstraction came together in sessions that explored how the project’s data-driven components interact with the rest of the system — including live integration work carried out on-site between partners.

eBPF-based security and access control rounded out the agenda, with sessions addressing both reviewer feedback and broader architectural questions about how access-control policy is defined, standardised, and enforced across the project’s components.

Keeping Score: KPI Review and Demonstrator Alignment

Belgrade produced a full slate of action items, with partners committing to concrete deliverables across the summer. A series of focused weekly working sessions between key partner pairs has been put in place to keep up the momentum.

The next consortium meeting will be confirmed shortly, with a final review-preparation event expected around the end of February 2027.

A Team That Enjoys Working Together

After the first day of intensive technical sessions, the consortium headed to Tri Šešira, one of the most beloved kafanas in Belgrade’s historic Skadarlija quarter. Over traditional Serbian food, on the cobblestone streets of this charming bohemian district, partners had the chance to unwind and connect beyond the meeting room. It was a lovely evening — and a reflection of something that makes ELASTIC genuinely special: a consortium that not only works well together, but truly enjoys each other’s company. The relationships built over the course of this project are one of its quiet but lasting achievements.

Looking Ahead

Belgrade produced a full slate of action items, with partners committing to concrete deliverables across the summer. A series of focused weekly working sessions between key partner pairs has been put in place to keep up the momentum.

The next consortium meeting will be confirmed shortly, with a final review-preparation event expected around the end of February 2027.