In April 2023, IT²EC returns to the Rotterdam Ahoy in the Netherlands for its 32^nd edition. With the strong support of Dutch Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces, around 2,000 visitors and more than 75 exhibitors are expected to convene for the three-day exhibition and conference to discuss the future of military training and explore the technologies that will shape it.

The 2023 edition of IT²EC takes place during a critical time for Europe, with the Russia-Ukraine conflict along its Eastern border continuing to drive a renewed consideration of how innovation and training can benefit nations and their allies in evolving their response for future and current operations – and the role of NATO within them.

To focus minds on these issues, the event’s theme has been focused on “Accelerating simulation and training for NATO and global partners’”, alongside “Enhancing multi-domain operational capabilities”. 

The conference will carry these themes throughout the three-day programme. Papers and presentations will investigate topics including the current challenges and future opportunities pertaining to accelerating training across all disciplines whilst deployed; synchronisation and integration across all defence; and the consideration of how wargaming may be exploited to enhance training and education outcomes in defence. 

IT²EC 2023 committee chair, Sanjay Khetia, said that across the conference, the emphasis will be on informed discussion on these topics, rather than simply the presentation of findings.

“We want to get down to the ‘so what’ level on these topics, which will be delivered by a greater focus on panel sessions, where discussion will inform not only what is happening in the training and simulation world, but how we respond to what is occurring, and what solutions we can deliver to support that response,” he said. “We do that by drawing in the multi-domain elements as reflected by the three conference pillars of Technologies and Architectures, Human Performance and Emerging Solutions.” 

The core technical pillar, Technologies and Architectures, will look at topics including C2 and simulation interoperability and architecture; Machine Learning within the generation of Digital Twins; Big Data collection, analysis and results delivery; and AI architecture and xR and distributed training for support functions. Rapid mission-specific synthetic environment generation will also be considered, as will “Cloud” architecture for supporting data acquisition and remote treatment (analysis) (experimentation, experience, recommendation, trends for future standardization), and the drive to upgrade legacy systems to support today’s training needs.

Representing the core Human Social, Cultural and Behavioral theme, the Human Performance conference pillar will look at connected educational delivery especially for transmedia learning across synthetic environments; Human-Data and Human-sensor interaction, experience and behavior; the use of AI in tracking responses and results; and developing a network-based intelligent and individualised learning system through machine learning and data mining. Improving knowledge exploitation with AI-supported decision-making models, and the ethics of AI or ML-enabled interactions will also form part of discussions. 

In the ‘Emerging Solutions’ pillar, the core applications theme will focus on accelerating training development: rapid responses to global dynamics; advances in large-scale, distributed collaboration and training, civil and cyber training with medical, first-responder and mass casualty simulation; and AI/Machine Learning-enabled instructional agents and synthetic teammates. Solutions to enhance immersion and realism in simulation training will also be discussed, along with interpreting and managing learner information: Data solutions for readiness insights.

All of these different facets must be considered in order to adapt the way training is delivered for today’s battlefield. 

“When assessing the delivery of training for a particular scenario - whatever it may be - we need to understand who we are training, what they are being trained for, and to what level,” Khetia said. “The level of fidelity required, the human factors that influence the individual being trained, and the technologies available to deliver the capability required – how to understand and adapt to these issues and formulate effective solutions, these are the core critical issues we aim to work through at IT²EC 2023.”

Interested in joining us in Rotterdam, the Netherlands from 24-26 April 2023? Register now: https://www.itec.co.uk/halldale