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11 26 2014

Nations' Chief Information Officers discuss NATO First Solutions

On 19 November 2014, the NCI Agency hosted the annual Chief Information Officers' Conference (CIOC) at NATO Headquarters in Brussels.

This yearly forum for nations enables dialogue, develops partnerships and aims at improving support to customers in the area of C4ISR capability development and service provision. It addresses cooperation on a bilateral, multilateral and regional basis.

Following the CIOC in 2013, where the NCI Agency introduced the NATO First Solution (NFS) Initiative, the 2014 plenary CIOC focused on the Nations' feedback on NFS implementation, multinational initiatives in progress and on the way forward for the implementation of a CFI Cooperation Platform to support information sharing between the various stakeholders in the NFS implementation.

NationstmpAmp Chief Information Officers discuss NATO First Solutions

Key note speakers from nations included US Acting DoD CIO, Mr Terry Halvorsen; UK CIO, Mr Mike Stone; NRDC-ITA, COL Carmine Pompa and LTC Paulo Nunes & COL João Barbas from the Portuguese Ministry of Defence. Focused discussions took place on:

  • Sharing information in a cost-effective manner in a coalition environment and making it secure, reliable and affordable, which implies exploitation of commercial solutions like clouds and a focus on mobility;
  • Exploring opportunities to enhance the governance structure of multinational initiatives while reducing costs for the nations, notably concerning the FMN and NATO Software Tools C&I Partnership;
  • Identifying ways to better synchronize NATO Baseline and national/multinational frameworks based on the NATO First Communication Platform;
  • Developing a cyber-defence cooperation platform, focusing on education and training and exploring the possible synergies with the NATO Industry Cyber Partnership (NICP) as well as with national Centres of Excellence;
  • Exploring solutions to include Partners with whom NCI Agency has a Programme of Work (POW); and
  • Introducing an acquisition workshop focused on the use of NCI Agency as a procurement agent.

The nations provided feedback primarily related to the conditions of use of the NATO solution in a Customer Funded environment, Education and Training, and the benefits of the C&I Partnership in development.