From UC Berkeley Haas to the Pentagon: How one MBA is reinventing counter-drone warfare

Volodymyr Silchenko, MBA 26, headed to Washington D.C. this month on a Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) Commercialization Fellowship with his autonomous counter-drone startup, OMNIA AI.

For Crimean native Volodymyr (Vlad) Silchenko, MBA 26, “the math is broken” in the field of defense when a $4 million Patriot missile is used to shoot down $30,000 Iranian or Russian-made drones. So, like many UC Berkeley Haas founders, he set out to solve the problem. 

“I came here with a specific plan from day one,” said Silchenko, who after graduating last month brought his defense startup OMNIA AI out of stealth mode. “I knew that I would be building a defense technology startup.”  

OMNIA AI is building a counter-UAS (unmanned aerial system) of a smaller, cheaper autonomous counter-drone system designed to stop and destroy attack drones. This week, Silchenko flew to Washington D.C., selected for the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) Commercialization Fellowship as part of the Summer 2026 cohort. The DIU, the Pentagon’s arm for getting commercial technology to the U.S. military faster, awards fellowships to a small group of teams from leading U.S. universities working on promising prototypes. 

Silchenko’s personal experience with the war in Ukraine—now in its fifth year—drew him to the defense industry. Ukraine is forcing the U.S. to rethink modern warfare in real-time, he said. And with OMNIA AI, Silchenko, a reserve officer in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, aims to join emerging venture-backed technology companies like Anduril and Saronic that are disrupting the Pentagon’s contracting model.

“The Pentagon relies on legacy systems, very expensive systems, and that’s why it’s not very quick to adapt to what’s happening in Ukraine and is still happening,” he said. 

Joining the Berkeley startup ecosystem

Born in Crimea, Silchenko attended university in Kyiv and stayed there after Russia’s 2022 invasion, transforming his startup restaurant business into a community hub for displaced people and refugees. Before coming to Haas for his MBA, he organized more than 80 charity events supporting Ukraine’s armed forces. 

UC Berkeley’s size, its research ecosystem, and its proximity to Silicon Valley all drove his decision to apply to Haas. 

“I realized that there is so much that can be done here and I’m one of the few Ukrainians here in Silicon Valley focusing on defense technology and the defense space specifically,” he said. “So, I see myself as kind of a bridge between Ukraine, Silicon Valley, and the United States.”

Across UC Berkeley, Silchenko took advantage of every program he could, hustling “to turn every stone possible on campus,” he said. That involved connecting with engineers and computer scientists and taking entrepreneurship classes at both Haas and UC Berkeley. He won the Berkeley Entrepreneurship cup for his drone autonomy concept, and participated in the inaugural Hacking for Defense cohort, led by former DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, a professor of public policy at the Goldman School. The cohort worked with the U.S. Army on ways to neutralize explosive drones.

 “Vlad is the real deal as an entrepreneur,” said Rhonda Shrader, MBA 96, executive director of the Berkeley Haas Entrepreneurship Program. “He’s generous with time to help others while remaining laser focused on delivering on his mission.” Kevin Brown, MBA 96, a mentor and entrepreneur who served as a military advisor on its early drone program, said Silchenko’s attributes as a founder go beyond intelligence and understanding of deep tech. “He has focus and will and determination and the ability to be humble and bring people along,” he said. “He has a mix of that that’s really next level.”

Gigi Wang, who taught Silchenko at the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology (SCET) entrepreneurship bootcamp, called his startup “game changing.”

Finding a cofounder

Silchenko’s OMNIA AI cofounder is a childhood friend whose family had vacationed in Crimea. The pair reconnected during a Y Combinator event held online last year. Silchenko found out that his friend was already building an interception system to stop attack drones, while he had been developing drone autonomy at Haas, the artificial intelligence and advanced robotics that let drones keep operating when an enemy jams GPS or radio frequencies. The pair decided to continue working on a startup together, building a counter-drone system that runs without an operator in the loop at under $1,000 per engagement.

OMNIA AI is now getting close to the field testing phase, currently rated a 5 on the Technology Readiness Level (TRL), a standardized scale used by organizations like NASA, the Department of Defense and the European Union. Technology used on the front line is a TRL 7, Silchenko said.

Before he graduated last month, Silchenko joined the third annual National Security Hackathon in San Francisco, cohosted by the U.S. Army. “It was a great experience,” he said. “We were locked in one place for two days. We didn’t sleep and we spent the whole night there.” 

At Haas, Silchenko has also met students like Bailey Baumbick and former US army officer Lee Kantowski, both MBA 27, who the New York Times recently highlighted among the growing Bay Area community “that aims to bring high-tech dynamism to the lumbering world of the military.” Kantowski and Bailey, along with Aidan Gilkerson and Austin Schmid, joined forces to start the Defense and Dual-Use Technology Club (DDU) at Berkeley.

Silchenko said it’s critical for more Haas students to play a bigger role in the defense industry, pointing to the Defining Leadership Principle Beyond Yourself, as a personal guide. 

“This world is full of unethical people,” he said. “The Defining Leadership Principles, the foundation of our school, brings ethical leaders into this world. The more ethical leaders in the defense technology space we have, the better this world can be.”