A cheque was presented to Bruce Poulin of the Legion by Lieutenant-General Stuart Beare, commander of Canadian Joint Operations Command (CJOC) and the keynote speaker, and Vanguard publisher John Jones. The donation was in lieu of gifts to the more than 25 presenters who shared their knowledge and expertise at the conference.
The event attracted a wide audience from across the Canadian Armed Forces C4ISR community and defence industry. Topics included C4ISR in deployed operations, emerging technologies, cloud computing, bandwidth challenges, SATCOM and Arctic communications.
Acknowledging that C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) “is at the heart of the joint agenda,” LGen Beare laid out the needs, challenges and opportunities that surround C4ISR across the Canadian Armed Forces and invited delegates with solutions to engage with CJOC-led joint training events.
“As the Chief of the Defence Staff’s force employer, I need to inform and shape the operational requirement for the joint force, for the joint fight. The commanders of the Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian Army and Royal Canadian Air Force are the experts in their respective warfare domains and are charged with designing and building their respective warfare domain capability packages – each joint or joint-enabled in its own way. My focus is on assuring our effectiveness in the global warfare domains – space and cyber, in particular, as well as in the joint enabling capabilities that allow tactical and operational integration of joint forces. Key here is C4ISR. I am joined in those areas of interest by the Chief of Force Development. In a small CAF that is looking to manage institutional overhead, you can say we are partnered in the joint agenda. Not withstanding how we slice and dice our efforts and focus in jointness, it is universally understood that C4ISR is at the heart of the joint agenda,” he said.
“This conference provided a great opportunity to bring together the defence community on a complex and challenging topic,” Jones said. “We are delighted we could provide a forum for government and industry to engage and look forward to further developing this event in the years to come.”