Former NATO Secretary General Rasmussen and the NCI Agency General Manager Koen Gijsbers, representing the staff of the Agency, were presented awards by AFCEA International at a ceremony in the very room where the Washington Treaty, NATO's founding act, was signed on 4 April 1949.
"I accept this award on behalf of the women and men of the Agency, working 24/7 to support NATO, maintain and defend its networks, and to deliver cutting-edge capabilities, in partnership with Industry," said Koen Gijsbers in his address.
Because the former Secretary General chose to accept the award in person, so did the General Manager.
"Our main challenge today is to speed technological innovation, by partnering with Industry and leveraging their creativity," added Mr Gijsbers, "This is why we have a strategic partnership with AFCEA; it is one of the means of engaging Industry early on, in order to come up with better solutions, more quickly."
AFCEA International – the Armed Forces Communication and Electronics Association - is a non-profit membership association with more than 35.000 members worldwide.
Each year AFCEA International presents three of its top awards for outstanding leadership in the areas of security policy and C4ISR. This year Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former NATO Secretary General, and MGEN (ret) Koen Gijsbers, the Agency's General Manager, received two of the tree awards.