AFCEA

In a first-of-its-kind move, new sustaining AFCEA corporate member Abacus Technology is offering its employees associate AFCEA memberships as an employee benefit. So far, the company has signed up 300 employees.

“I wish we had done it sooner because we really have gotten a lot of positive feedback,” says Alice Solomon, a vice president of Abacus. “When we were trying to come up with approaches for tightening up our community, it just seemed like a logical thing to do,” she adds.

Col. Tom Horton, USAF (Ret.), a member of the executive committee on AFCEA’s board of directors died on March 20 at the age of 72. He also served on the board of the Atlanta Chapter.

Col. Horton attended Georgia Tech where he was a member of the varsity football team. Upon graduating in 1969 with a bachelor’s degree in industrial management, he was commissioned a second lieutenant. He earned a Master of Science in management from Troy State University.

Charles (Chuck) R. Corjay, a Distinguished Life Member of AFCEA, passed away on March 17. He was 86.

Corjay joined AFCEA in 1972 and held almost every chapter officer position throughout his career at the association. For 12 years he was a regional vice president, supporting multiple chapters in the Mid-West, Mid-South and National Capital regions, and also served on the international board of directors.

A veteran of the Air Force, Corjay helped build the Northern Virginia (NOVA) Chapter from a sub-chapter of Washington DC to the largest AFCEA chapter. At its height, NOVA had more than 7,000 members.

To maintain its strategic position in the world, succeed on future battlefields and protect the homeland, the Department of Defense must increase the adoption of artificial intelligence, according to the department’s newly released Artificial Intelligence Strategy.

The National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI), a nonprofit organization dedicated to transforming math and science education, presented a check for $455,217 to the schools of Richmond County, Georgia, during the AFCEA TechNet Augusta 2018 conference in Augusta, Georgia. 

A company designing networked drones for disaster relief is the first small business selected in an AFCEA Small Business Innovation Shark Tank competition to uncover innovative emerging technologies. The company, LTAid of Vancouver, Washington, is building unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that can serve emergency responders as well as warfighters in theater.

“The demand for logistics outstrips the ability of logistics,” said LTAid’s Chris Thobaben during the competition. “We look to revolutionize a small piece of the supply chain, but it’s the most critical piece.”

The generation that remembers “duck and cover” also recalls headlines that included the words Soviet Union and impending dangers. Today, a combination of global instability, rising authoritarianism and democracies in retreat may lead to similar yet more dangerous situations, and this time, the headlines also are likely to include the words “People's Republic of China.”

Many cybersecurity methods and products are available to protect wireless networks from intrusion, but security concerns go well beyond the risks to Wi-Fi. The combination of legacy wireless systems and Internet of Things vulnerabilities number in the hundreds, and all radio frequency protocols are at risk.  

I was a junior in high school when I was invited to the house of my best friend, Adam, on the New Jersey shore. This was way before the garish reality TV show of the same name, but in much of the same way, my expectations were objectively excessive and shallow at their core. Who could blame me? Most of the town knew exactly who my friend’s father was. Mike was a vivacious and extremely rich man. We once calculated his estimated yearly income and compared it against Forbes magazine’s reported earnings for American singer, dancer and actress Britney Spears. Mike "won."