ITEC is the leading European military training and simulation show. With discussions around modelling, disaster management, cyber security, e-learning, mobile technologies, competence-based training and visual display products, ITEC present the full spectrum of the training, simulation and education challenges facing the defence and security sectors.
Key Themes
Interoperable by design: connecting people, technology, and nations
The ITEC 2019 themes reflected the event’ key objective of empowering those who serve their nations in joint, combined, and distributed contexts. The show focuses on ways in which members from research, industry, and operations work together to enhance international collaboration by stepping outside siloed comfort zones to connect people, technology, and nations. Ensuring that joint training and intercultural education are accessible to the training audience, honouring cultural identities, and ensuring that stereotypes, prejudices, biases, or assumptions do not become barriers to collaboration and interoperability are key challenges addressed by this theme.
The ITEC 2019 Conference themes:
- Human Factors and Performance in a Connected Age
This track represents the core human, social, cultural and behavioural (HSCB) theme for ITEC. It will consider the design of joint, interoperable military and civil exercises, whilst factoring in issues such as intercultural understanding and communication. An assessment of machine collaboration and connected educational delivery is also a key feature.
- Technologies and Architectures
This track represents the core technical theme for ITEC, focusing on technical developments advancing the use of collaborative, cooperative or innovative processes. Experts will discuss a range of simulation environments, with the benefits, learnings and applications of each.
- Today’s Challenges, Tomorrow’s Needs, Emerging Solutions
How people may use innovative technology for more effective and efficient training and education is a mainstay of ITEC; and in 2019 it will be given greater emphasis. What does the future of training look like? How should new media and mixed reality scenarios feature in effective military and civil first response training?
ITEC 2019 was in Sweden, which has led the VIKING series of exercises since 1999, alongside participants from the United Nations, European Union, civilian authorities, police, military and representatives from humanitarian organisations. VIKING is a practical extension of efforts to improve mission readiness in a time- and resource-effective manner, to develop interoperable military and civil defence, and to build on work already undertaken by NATO to better connect joint forces within and among nations. It is also an effort to understand each other and overcome cultural barriers, thus highlighting opportunities for collaboration that exist among individuals, teams, groups, and enterprises from different domains, perspectives, and nations. ITEC 2019 was proud to contribute to this conversation.
