10-06-2009

Chapter Name: The Hague (The Netherlands) By: Air Cdre RNLAF retd. Ir. Gerrit Schoonderbeek

Summary of Meeting:

The June meeting of Afcea Chapter The Hague was organized at the International Security Experimentation and Transformation Institute (ISETI) in Delft, the Netherlands.

Chapter President Willem Voogt opened the meeting and apologized for the late change in the program: The visit to Airbase Gilze-Rijen which was originally foreseen, had to be postponed and ISETI was so kind to organize - on short notice - today’s meeting.
He then announced that the next meeting will be organized on 20 August 2009 by GovCert at the location of the IDL (Instituut Defensie Leergangen), Rijswijk. On 16 September 2009 the Chapter will meet in Waardenburg for presentations and demonstrations of Cyclomedia. Planning for the Annual Dinner meeting on 10 December 2009 is still proceeding according to plans. That meeting will be hosted by Thales, Huizen.

Finally Mr. Voogt announced that Afcea International awarded Chapter The Hague with the prestigious Albert J. Myer Award for Achievements over the past year(s).

He then formally introduced Mr. Frans Copini, General Director of ISETI, who briefed the audience on his company.

First Mr. Copini presented the Open Innovation Strategy, build on three main pillars:

D-CIS (Delft Co-operation on Intelligent Systems): D-CIS Lab is the Open Research Partnership of Thales Nederland, TNO, the University of Amsterdam and the Delft University of Technology. In research projects Human Sciences and Information & Communication Technologies are combined in a quest to shape human cognition and artificial intelligence into the best collaborative problem solver: Actor-Agent Communities (for decision making in chaotic environments).
T-Xchange (Technology Exchange): Supports, accelerates, enhances and improves complex decision-making processes .T-Xchange provides a synthetic environment in which wicked problems and social collective intelligence complexity are taking a journey aiming to develop better shared understanding of the problem and shared commitment to possible solutions. The EBS (Effect Based Solutions) approach is facilitating collaborative decision making and integrally takes problem owners, stakeholders and multi-disciplinarily expertise into account.
ISETI (International Security Experimentation and Transformation Institute).

Mr. Copini then continued with ISETI, which was founded under Dutch Law as a private foundation in 2007. It’s mission is to accelerate and improve demand driven innovation in the domain of public safety and security. ISETI is an initiative, supported by the Province of Overijssel (NL) and is part of the Innovation Route Twente. The R&D program of ISETI is co-financed by an EFRO (European Fund for Regional Development) subsidy.

A facilitated and moderated process structures the use of methods for interactive problem solving and uses the knowledge of human domain experts and knowledge and technology providers. Scenario based simulation and gaming are the tools with which real-world and complex problems are visualized and - in collaboration -are solved by the stakeholders.

ISETI offers a research program that generates high quality and high speed of the engineering process for innovative security solutions. This is called the Safety and Security Transformation and Experimentation Process (S²TEP). The structured S²TEP approach helps to reveal answers on a number of important aspects: where do things go wrong? Where can things be improved? Do we have to change the tasks or the roles or other aspects of the way that we work? How do we handle dilemmas such as safety versus privacy? How can technology contribute to the solution and what technology is the most appropriate?

Based on this analysis, several scenarios are developed in which the problem is manifest and by using these scenarios in a specially developed simulation game, possible solutions are generated and evaluated in a virtual environment. The result is a shared concept for a solution in multiple dimensions.

Mr. Copini concluded his presentation with a tour through the facilities, after which the meeting was closed with the traditional lunch.

Definition of used acronyms:
ISETI = International Security Experimentation and Transformation Institute
GovCert = GOVCERT.NL is the Computer Emergency Response Team for the Dutch Government
IDL = Instituut Defensie Leergangen (The Netherlands Defence College)
D-CIS = Delft Co-operation on Intelligent Systems
TNO = Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek (Dutch Central Organisation for Applied and Scientific Research)
T-Xchange = Technology Exchange
NL = the Netherlands
R&D = Research and Development
EFRO = European Fund for Regional Development
S²TEP = Safety and Security Transformation and Experimentation Process

Guest Speaker(s):

Speaker’s Full Name	Position	Rank	Organization
Frans Copini	General Director	Civilian	ISETI

Photograph #1:

				Rear Admiral LH (ret) Willem Voogt, President Afcea Chapter The Hague, presents a Certificate-of-Appreciation to Mr. Frans Copini, General Director, for his presentation on ISETI: its Goals, its Mission and some of the current Projects undertaken by his organization.





Position	Full Name	Rank	Branch of Service		Organization
Left	Frans Copini	Civilian	General Director		ISETI
Right	Willem Voogt	Rear Adm LH (ret)	RNLN		President Chapter The Hague

Photograph #2:

The server location for ISETI Customers, in case they - for security reasons - want to bring their own equipment

Photograph #3:

Afcea members in discussion at the location of the different test, evaluation and experimentation set-ups of ISETI