In June, approximately 180 delegates attended the chapter's Annual TriCyCIS Conference held at Royal Holloway, University of London's Egham Campus.
The pandemic meant that this was the first time that the conference had been held since 2019, so there was a real thirst to bring the community together. The event was themed around "Accelerating Into the Information Age - Innovation, Integration, Implementation."
After laying out some of the context, including implications of the war in Ukraine, and reviewing the technology opportunities in the morning sessions, the afternoon focused on the practical challenges of delivering national security in the Information Age.
There was an excellent range of Keynote Speakers and Presenters drawn from across defense, industry, academia and government, including a cameo performance by a robotic dog from the DE&S Robotics Centre of Excellence. The Robotics Centre of Excellence has close ties to Defence Digital, as it is closely aligned with the Defence Artificial Intelligence Centre and Digital Foundry.
The Keynote Speaker line-up was headlined by Laurence Lee, second permanent secretary, Ministry of Defence, who outlined the commitment from the 'top of the shop' to do things differently to allow the agility needed for defense to compete in the Information Age.
Following the conference, 200 people attended a formal black-tie dinner in the magnificent Founder's Dining Hall at Royal Holloway, where Defence Digital's director of operations, Rear Adm. Nick Washer, Royal Navy, spoke of his experience as the C5i component commander for the current operations in Eastern Europe.
|