Today was the first day of the first edition of the NATO New Technologies Event 2018 (NTE18), hosted by the JALLC. Participants from NATO, the Nations, industry and academia came together to share, discuss, learn, and challenge. Participants enjoyed the mix of presentations, demonstrations, and booth sessions and went away with lots to think about and to look forward to tomorrow.
The Joint Analysis and Lessons Learned Centre’s Commander Brigadier General Antonio Nascimento welcomed participants. He said that the aim of the event was to explore available and emerging technologies and to discuss their potential for meeting the challenges in capturing and making best use of Lessons Learned.
All nine of the industry and academia participants taking part in the NTE18 then introduced themselves briefly, providing an executive summary of the presentations and demonstrations they will be delivering at the NTE18.
After lunch, there was a first opportunity for participants to visit the Booths, try out some of the technology being demonstrated, ask questions, and explore what technology might be able to do in their areas of responsibility.
Vice Admiral Paul Bennett’s keynote address placed the Event in the context of Allied Command Transformation’s responsibilities. He focussed on the speed that technologies were developing and how they are changing the nature of warfare.
The pace is such that they are termed disruptive and emerging technologies. ACT is no longer just horizon scanning for new technologies— but fundamentally changing the way NATO works.
He noted that NATO Nations were investing in technology through defence budgets but the main investment was through industry for civilian applications such as quantum technology, 3D printing, robotics and nanotechnology.
He went on to highlight that the defence and security community must now apply risk-based judgements as to how far and how quickly to exploit the new technologies. The Lessons Learned Process in NATO is challenged by the use of outdated methods of data collection, information management and sharing, and the speed of relevance of analysis.
The gap now needs to be bridged between NATO’s clear needs and the technological opportunities that industry and academia can provide. Vice Admiral Bennett did, however, note that the technological solutions that will eventually bridge this gap were relatively straightforward and already in use.
The important thing now was to focus on identifying solutions and collaborating on them immediately after NTE18 so that progress could be made quickly.
BGEN Nascimento gave a presentation on the NATO Lessons Learned Capability, and the need to progress from optimization to innovation. He described the NATO Lessons Learned Capability from a new perspective of interconnectivity.
The event was the perfect opportunity to focus on innovation in relation to the tools pillar of the Capability, particularly the NATO Lessons Learned Portal (NLLP). He noted in this context that the NLLP fitted the present operating environment relatively well, but would of course need to change to keep up with evolving technology.
BGEN Nascimento outlined the way ahead from this event regarding the identification of potential technological solutions that could improve the NATO Lessons Learned Capability. In this respect, he mentioned the ongoing work the JALLC is conducting to analyse such potential solutions.
Finally, he noted the importance of looking beyond short-term solutions and keeping one eye on the horizon for the future challenges and opportunities that technology may bring.
Major Cedric Sauvion gave a presentation on the NATO ACT Innovation Hub, which supports NATO priorities through a process of Open Innovation.
The Hub is both a physical and a virtual space that collects innovative ideas from a wide range of people and entities from outside NATO. The Hub has over 2000 experts from 65 nations as collaborators. Its assets and know how are then available to anyone in NATO and the Nations.
It is not just a think tank—it focuses on implementing solutions, with end users, solution designers and ideas providers working together.
To boost innovation everywhere in the Alliance, the NATO innovation challenge invites the worldwide public to propose solutions to an issue identified by the experts and compete for a prize!
Mr Stephan Brunessaux of Airbus then gave an introduction to the terminology for new technologies, particularly for artificial intelligence.
He told us that AI was:
“a set of theories and techniques with the objectives to mimic human behaviours and create a computer that ‘thinks’ like a human.”
It was not new. Alan Turing had created a test for it in the 1950s and Stephan soon had all NTE18 participants distinguishing dogs from muffins.
AI can surpass humans in a number of tasks—playing games such as chess, finding anomalies, classifying images, diagnosing diseases—but it still lacks common sense and general knowledge.
AI is focused on narrow tasks and there is no general artificial intelligence robot, except in the movies.
Finally, representatives from 4C Strategies, Speech Processing Solutions, and Airbus Defence and Space had the opportunity to present and demonstrate their potential technological solution to improve the NATO Lessons Learned Capability.
The first day of the NTE18 was overall well received. Tomorrow is dedicated to the remaining presentations and demonstrations from industry and academia.