About Me

My photo
MILITARY TECHNOLOGY (MILTECH) is the world's leading international tri-service defence monthly magazine in the English language. MILITARY TECHNOLOGY is "Required Reading for Defence Professionals". Follow us on Twitter: MILTECH1

22 May 2012

ITEC Buzzing

Leading military representatives from the UK, Germany, Italy and the US have shed new light on their nations’ approach to training at the opening session of ITEC.
The distinguished panel of military experts comprised LtGen. Peter Schelzig, Commander German Air Force Command, Germany; Monica R Shephard, Vice Deputy Director Joint & Coalition Warfighting J7, Joint Staff and the senior civilian executive in the Joint & Coalition Warfighting Center (JCWC); Air Vice-Marshal Mike Lloyd RAF, Air Officer Commanding Number 22 (Training) Group, Air Command, UK; Brig.Gen Giovanni Fungo, Assistant Chief of Staff Capability Engineering at NATO Allied Command Transformation (ACT) and Rob Crook, MD of Raytheon UK’s National Security & Training business group.

The keynote address was provided by Lt.Gen. Sir William Rollo, Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff (Personnel & Training) at UK MOD. To a packed room of international delegates, Gen. Rollo offered an insight into the UK’s new Defence Training and Education Strategy, which he is delivering against a backdrop of unprecedented budgetary constraints and change across defence in the UK.

Focused on improving human capital, building defence capacity and, most importantly, reinforcing a culture of learning, General Rollo described the many benefits of producing increasingly skilled, capable and intellectually agile servicemen and women. The establishment of international training centres, for example, enhances interoperability, while the progress being made in DSTI is driving the coordinated development of technical standards.

The General went on to outline the UK MOD’s expectations from industry, emphasising the need for systems and solutions which can easily be transferred from civil to defence applications, while exploiting opportunities for interoperability with partners. Industry was also encouraged to become more involved with future research and development programmes. Under today’s severe economic reductions “we need to find cost-effective ways of making the most of what we’ve got” General Rollo concluded, “hard times provide hard choices and hard choices are good ones.

A buzzing ITEC 2012 welcomed over 1500 visitors by the afternoon of its opening day, a significant increase on the previous year.

No comments:

Post a Comment