Building meaningful partnerships that can help the Alliance stay ahead of cyber threats will require more dialogue between NATO and industry partners and close collaboration at early stages to solve problems and deliver solutions. Day 1 established the need for partnerships; Day 2 saw more discussion about how to build them.
U.S. Department of Defense Chief Information Officer Terry Halvorsen described a shift from government-issued "requirements" to team-built "capabilities," emphasizing that government and industry teams need to work together from the beginning to deliver those capabilities. He also called for a "series of connected companies" to find answers to cyber challenges.
Industry panelists discussed the changing nature of the cloud and implications for NATO efforts to build a secure cloud. Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Lofgren, Deputy Chief of Staff for Capability Development, Allied Command Transformation, laid out the 'mission requirements' for the NATO cloud: speed, resilience and a cloud that connects to other clouds.
In a tangible step toward connecting Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to NATO business opportunities, NCI Agency launched the Small Business Mentoring Program, with numerous one-on-one mentoring sessions between SMEs and large companies held on Day 2 of NITEC16.
NATO senior managers also presented €3 billion of business opportunities in cybersecurity, cloud computing, command and control, and federated mission networking.
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