The NCI
Agency is pleased to announce the theme for its flagship Industry conference,
NITEC17, 'Sharpening NATO's Technological Edge: Adaptive Partnerships and the
Innovative Power of Alliance Industry'.
The annual
three-day event, which is organized jointly with AFCEA Europe (the Association
for Communications, Electronics, Intelligence and Information Systems Professionals)
and in collaboration with the Host Nation – Canada – will take place on
24-26 April 2017 in Ottawa.
The
conference comes as Alliance Heads of State and Government stressed the need to
support innovation through greater collaboration with Industry at the 2016
Warsaw Summit.
NITEC17
will offer a unique opportunity to act on NATO's innovation agenda through
strategic dialogue with Industry partners about the applicability of advanced
and emerging technologies in the military domain, and fresh approaches on how
to implement them.
Working
together
"Innovation
is now more global, more rapid, and more concentrated in the private sector,
where more commercial technologies than ever before have military
applications," NCI Agency General Manager Major General (retired) Koen
Gijsbers said.
"This
has led to repeated calls—including at NITEC16 in Estonia—for a shift from
government-issued requirements to team-built capabilities, where government and
Industry teams work together at earlier stages to solve problems and deliver
solutions. NITEC17 will be an ideal platform to continue moving forward with
this new approach."
Bringing
together more than 500 high-level defence experts from across NATO, the Allied
militaries, Industry and academia, NITEC17 will build on the success of
NITEC16.
While
NITEC16 established a clear consensus about the need for partnership and
innovation, NITEC17 will focus on converting this consensus into action.