Global NATO Holds Conference In Hungary

North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Allied Command Transformation

November 4, 2014
14th Annual CD&E Conference Kicks off in Budapest

More than 150 military and civilian leaders from NATO nations and organisations gathered in Budapest, Hungary, November 4 for the 2014 International Concept Development and Experimentation (CD&E) Conference.
Participants from the Partnership For Peace (PfP), Mediterranean Dialogue (MD), Istanbul Cooperative Initiative (ICI) and Partners Across the Globe programs were also part of the event.
The annual conference, hosted collaboratively by NATO Allied Command Transformation (ACT) and U.S. Joint Staff J7 since 2001, is one of the largest conferences solely devoted to information-sharing and relationship-building in CD&E programmes, military transformation, research and technology, developing concepts, strategy and doctrine and executing experiments.
The theme for this year’s conference is “The CD&E Journey – A Roadmap to the Future.” Welcome remarks were delivered by Hungarian Army Brigadier General Ernõ Péter Siposs; U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Jon Thomas who is Deputy Director, Future Joint Force ´Development U.S. Joint Staff J7; and Danish Army Brigadier General, Supreme Allied Commander Transformation Assistant Chief of Staff for Capability Engineering and Innovation.
Chief Security Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister of Hungary, Ambassador Dr. Réka Szemerkényi delivered the keynote address to kick off the three-day event telling the audience their work over the next three days will help define how the Alliance take on future security challenges.

Day one discussions focused on Leveraging Industry, Academia and Defence Entites for CD&E and Best Practices of Modelling and Simulation in the CD&E environment. The next two days will feature workshops and seminars focusing on topics such as Collaborative CD&E in Action, Command and Control with Mission Partners: Enhancing Federated Mission Network (FMN) and Shaping CD&E for the future.
The 14th CD&E conference will conclude November 6.

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