ICMCIS is Europe’s largest conference on military CIS, covering scientific topics and technologies related to C4I* defence. This year’s event was organized by the NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA), with the support of the Portuguese Ministry of National Defence.
The conference was opened by co-chairs Antoine Smallegange, C4ISR and AI Cluster Coordinator at TNO, and Vice Chair of the NATO IST Panel, and Michael Street, NCIA Data Science and AI Chief. The co-chairs provided an overview of the conference and its three tracks: Intelligent Information Systems for Command and Control and Intelligence; Military Communication and Networks; and Cyber Security and Information Assurance.
Major General Krzysztof Kociuba, NCIA Chief of Staff, provided an overview of NATO’s digital transformation and the challenges ahead. Rear-Admiral Gameiro Marques, Director-General of the Portuguese National Security Authority, delivered a military keynote on Portugal’s approach to cyber security for defence. “It’s clear that cyberspace is now a geostrategic domain of confrontation,” Rear-Admiral Marques said in his remarks. “We see this, we feel this, every single day of our lives.”
Lieutenant Colonel Yelyzaveta Boiko, of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, shared Ukraine’s experience with digitized warfare, and Prof Leid Zejnilovic of the Nova School of Business and Economics, discussed the implications of artificial intelligence. The conference included presentations from several companies that have participated in the NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA)’s startup accelerator programme.
Colonel Dr Nikolai Stoianov (left) presents the IST Panel Individual Excellence Award to Dr Konrad Wrona, NCIA Principal Scientist.
During the event, Dr Konrad Wrona, NCIA Principal Scientist, was presented with an Individual Excellence Award. Colonel Dr Nikolai Stoianov, IST Panel Chair, presented the award highlighting Dr Wrona’s outstanding scientific contributions to the NATO STO and, in particular, his efforts in advancing the IST Panel Programme of Work.
“As technologies continue to evolve at a breakneck pace, it becomes even more critical for NATO Allies to collaborate and share knowledge on military CIS,” said Smallegange, the ICMCIS co-chair. “And as we’ve seen in Ukraine, the modern battlefield is increasingly dynamic, which demands greater agility in how we innovate. ICMCIS provides the perfect forum for this kind of knowledge sharing and innovation, and helps to ensure that NATO Allies stay ahead of our adversaries.”
*C4I stands for (Command, Control, Communication, Computing and Information).