NATO, NATO's progress towards information and decision superiority in mission areas—including friendly force tracking, intelligence and surveillance sharing—will be the focus of a high-level Alliance conference in Antalya, Turkey on 30 April – 2 May.
The NATO Network Enabled Capabilities (NNEC) Conference will bring together more than 300 participants, including senior NATO commanders, national representatives, subject experts and industry leaders.
They will discuss the progress that the Alliance is making in 'network-centric' operations, which link NATO and national systems to give commanders superior information, situational awareness and command and control capabilities. In mission areas such as Afghanistan, networking technology gives troops an informational advantage on the ground.
“Network-centric operations have gone from blue-sky thinking to reality,” said General Koen Gijsbers, Assistant Chief of Staff for Command, Control, Computers, Communications and Intelligence at NATO's Allied Command Transformation, the organizers of the conference. “Systems such as friendly force tracking are in place and making a huge impact on our operations, particularly in Afghanistan, where they are saving soldiers' lives.”
Network-centric systems include technologies that will allow NATO nations to better share intelligence and surveillance information, including from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The technologies provide commanders with superior situational awareness in difficult terrain, such as Afghanistan.
At NATO's recent Bucharest Summit, Heads of State and Government agreed that NATO must continue to “strengthen information superiority through networked capabilities”.
The conference will be the first post-Summit opportunity for NATO, national officials, experts and representative of industry to review progress and set priorities for the way ahead.
Key speakers will include: Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, Admiral Luciano Zappata, Deputy Chief of the Turkish General Staff, General Ergin Saygun and NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defence Investment, Peter Flory.
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