AFCEA Winter Intelligence Symposium on Feb. 13 the feature top-notch speakers

AFCEA has posted the details of its upcoming Winter Intelligence Symposium, slated for February 13 in Laurel, MD, on its Web site.

The Association notes that the National Intelligence Council (NIC) published its Global Trends 2030 paper, outlining a series of factors that could define the security environment of the mid-third of the 21st century. Several of the paper’s themes were far outside the realm of traditional national security issues.

“The AFCEA Winter Intelligence Symposium will use the NIC paper not to discuss the intelligence environment of 2030, but as a starting point to explore the steps the Intelligence Community (IC) needs to take within the next decade to remain relevant,” explains AFCEA.

Session One will concentrate on where the IC and the Department of Defense (DoD) maintain unassailable technological superiority, where they are in danger of losing their edge, and what needs to be done to prevent others from appropriating the technologies for malevolent purposes.

Session Two will address the paradigm shift taking place within the IC today to incorporate more fully non-traditional information and what changes in the IC structure, leadership, and strategic planning are needed to meet the changing expectations of decision makers.

The symposium’s final session will discuss continuing and emerging challenges in the public-private partnership, to include technical, procedural, and cultural issues that must be addressed in the near term.

In addition, there will be plenty of time for networking and an exhibit area showcasing the latest in intelligence technologies.

Here is a list of the scheduled speakers at the Winter Intelligence Symposium, as presented by AFCEA:

Intelligence for the World of 2030 

Dr. Christopher Kojm

Chairman

National Intelligence Council

Session One — Brave or Not, it will be a New World: Key Changes Coming 

Dr. David Bray

Executive Director

National Commission for the Review of the Research and

Development Programs of the U.S. Intelligence Community

Dr. Peter Highnam

Director

Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity

Overview:  Looking into the future, any scenario of relevance includes the continued development, and likely proliferation of disruptive technologies.  While the U.S. enjoys a technological lead, other countries and groups are amazingly adept at adopting new technologies, mostly, but not always, for good purposes.  The technical intelligence and technology assessment functions of the IC atrophied over a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan while the U.S. placed extraordinary efforts on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency. While the U.S. rebalances its strategic focus to include the Pacific, it also will need to strengthen and reenergize its abilities to rapidly assess foreign technology developments and to counter game-changing technical threats from others, while maintaining its long standing advantage in preventing strategic technology surprise.  A key focus of this session will be to identify where the IC and DoD maintain unassailable technological superiority, where they are in danger of losing their edge, and what they need to do to prevent others from appropriating these technologies for malevolent purposes. 

Session Two – Relevance of Intelligence in the Information Age 

Carmen Medina

Specialist Leader

Deloitte Consulting LLP

Len Moodispaw

President and CEO

KEYW Corp.

Overview:  The IC is challenged to remain relevant in the global world of information that is moving at petabyte scale and at wire speed. Traditional intelligence will remain vital but increasingly U.S. decision-makers, accustomed to performing their own analysis through technical media, will expect the IC to bring together all forms of data and information, including the broad range of social and new media, to provide assessments and warning of threats to U.S. national interests globally. It is far from clear, however, whether the IC fully understands this paradigm shift and is changing with sufficient speed to accommodate the new information world. What is becoming clearer, however, is that the IC will become ineffective unless it assimilates new and dynamic information technologies, capabilities, processes, and finds new means of conveying this knowledge to policy makers.  In this non-traditional era, it also is clear that the U.S. needs to ensure that laws and practices keep pace with technological change and intelligence activities if the privacy and civil liberties of U.S. citizens are to be protected and a “surveillance society” avoided.

Session Three — Public-Private Relationships for the New Intelligence Environment 

Dr. Ruth David, PhD

President & Chief Executive Officer

Analytic Services Inc.

Theresa Everett

Former Acquisition Study Lead

Intelligence Community Strategic Studies Group

Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Dr. Eric Rasmussen MD, MDM, FACP

Managing Director

Infinitum Humanitarian Systems

Overview:  The private sector has always played a crucial role in the American national security successes.  In the dynamic, complex, and volatile environment of the next 15-20 years, both government and the private sector (including corporate and academic institutions) must build stronger collaborative relationships in order to better adapt to the emerging environments to enable agility and continued mission success.  This panel will discuss both continuing and emerging challenges in the public-private partnership, to include technical, procedural, and cultural issues that must be addressed.

Rebalancing Intelligence

VADM Michael S. Rogers, USN

Commander, U.S. Fleet Cyber Command

Commander, U.S. 10th Fleet 

Overview:  As the U.S. Intelligence Community shifts from 12 years of providing timely tactical intelligence to warfighters in Iraq and Afghanistan to a more strategic global focus, U.S. policymakers will require more strategic assessments and warning intelligence in order to make informed decisions in a complex world. The Administration in its National Security Strategy has spoken of “a rebalance” of resources, including intelligence, to meet broader and longer-range threats to U.S. national security. In this changed environment, new and rapidly evolving streams of information and knowledge are inundating the policy level in addition to traditional classified intelligence. While it is acknowledged that secret intelligence will always be a critical element in decision making, the policymakers of the future will likely turn to the new streams of open source information as they develop national security strategies and deal with difficult threats and policy decisions in the future.