“serious games and the smart defense initiative” by paul thurkettle - serious play conference...
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Paul Thurkettle speaks about “Serious Games and the Smart Defense Initiative” at the Serious Play Conference 2012 ABSTRACT: Following the NATO summit in Chicago, the NATO Secretary General has received from Heads of States a clear mandate to continue his initiative, Smart Defense. As national budgets are cut and nations seek to reduce their spending, NATO has started many initiatives to make itself more effective as well as supporting national development and reductions. One of these initiatives is the adoption of serious games for use by NATO, NATO and partner nations.TRANSCRIPT
Supreme Allied Commander Transformation
Serious Games and the
Smart Defence Initiative Serious Play Conference
22nd Aug 2012
Paul Thurkettle Education & Training Technologies Section
Joint Education Training & Exercises
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• I am a digital Immigrant but… – Built a pong game in 1975
– Had a BBC micro, Sinclair Spectrum, Commodore 32/64, Atari
• Consider myself a geek
• Adopted a mobile phone in 2009
• Joined Facebook
• Still to twitter
• Struggling to watch my son on the 100+ hrs playing Skyrim
• Do get it, am excited about it but frustrated..
• Unable to multi-task effectively
• Overwhelmed in our age – time management, social awareness acceptance
• Partly avoidance of personal technology “need quiet time”
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Introduction
Overview
• Who are we.. • What is Smart Defence and CFI • Virtual Worlds - Serious Games studies • Naming conventions • What are we up to? • Changing mind-sets • Future – working together
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Who are we?
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation serving 28 nations
Allied Command Transformation Based in Norfolk, Virginia, USA
One of two NATO Strategic Commands Created in 2003
Vision Statement: ACT is NATO’s leading agent for change, driving, facilitating, and advocating continuous improvement of Alliance capabilities to maintain and enhance the military relevance and effectiveness of the Alliance. Strategic Objectives: Provide appropriate support to NATO missions and operations. Lead NATO military transformation. Improve relationships, interaction and practical cooperation with partners, nations and international organisations.
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ACT Domain
Joint Warfare Centre (JWC)
Joint Force Training Centre (JFTC)
Allied Command Transformation (ACT)
NATO Undersea Research Centre (NURC)
Joint Analysis and Lessons Learned Centre (JALLC)
SACT Representative in Europe (STRE)
Allied Command Operation (ACO)
Staff Element Europe (SEE)
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Joint Force Trainer (JFT) ***
• Responsible for NATO’s individual and collective training • Global Training Architecture • “e-Learning is the future” • National engagements • Linking to academic standards – Bologna
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NATO e-Learning Capabilities
ADL Online > 33,000 Students > 300 hours online Supports all NATO E&T Supports nations SCORM based
Immersive Learning Serious Game and
Virtual World technology
Courses being developed
Distributed Learning
Mobile Learning New requirement
to be supported Specialist delivery
(not reformatted)
Collaboration
Portals
Computer Based Training
Stand Alone packages
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Our customers
NATO School
NCCIS
NDC
Individual Training
JFTC
JWC
Collective Training
eLearning
NMIOTC
NDC
NATO SCHOOL
NCISS
Support to NATO/
Nations
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Partnerships
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Training Spectrum & Implementation of E&T
Technologies
Education Individual
Training
Collective
Training Exercises
ONLINE COURSES
DISTRIBUTED TRAINING
SERIOUS GAMING / VIRTUAL WORLDS
MOBILE TECHNOLOGY / DEVICES
KNOWLEDGE PORTAL / COI SUPPORT
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Smart Defence
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"Smart Defence offers a new approach to the delivery of capabilities.
It is designed to enhance the efficiency with which Allies, together, field critical
capabilities, allowing them to do in cooperation what they could not do
efficiently, if at all, alone."
Smart Defence?
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Smart Defence is based on capability areas that are critical for NATO, in particular as established at the Lisbon summit in 2010. Ballistic missile defence, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, maintenance of readiness, training and force preparation, effective engagement and force protection For the purposes of Smart Defence, the Alliance nations must give priority to those capabilities which NATO needs most, specialize in what they do best, and look for multinational solutions to shared problems. NATO can act as intermediary, helping the nations to establish what they can do together at lower cost, more efficiently and with less risk.
• Capability Requirements • Specialisation • Cooperation • Share resources • All save money/manpower
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Smart Defence
Governments
Academia
Partners
Industry
Discussion, resource sharing, combined projects, coordination, “Pooling and sharing”
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Connected Forces Initiative
CFI
“The Connected Forces Initiative aims to preserve the interoperability and enhance shared abilities that have resulted from years of operations in the field. It reinforces Smart Defense through greater collaboration in military education, training and exercises, and application of new technologies.”
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CFI and Education & Training
Governments
Academia
Partners
Industry
Is serious gaming the solution,
Or part of the solution?
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NATO two development tracks
Experimentation & Fielding
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2009-2011 Virtual Worlds Investigation
• Virtual worlds
• Gaming technology
• Tactical level
2011-2013 Strategic Decision Making Training through Games
• Gaming technology
• Serious games
• Upper operational and political level
Led to acceptance by JFT and the start of production
What’s in a name?
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Immersive technology refers to technology that blurs the line between the physical
world and digital or simulated world, thereby creating a sense of immersion.
Serious Games
Virtual Worlds Immersive Training
• Useful, what if Guitar Hero had taught kids to learn to read music or play a real guitar, what if Skyrim taught map reading
• Multinational, non native speaking • Limited bandwidths, platforms, military computer
restrictions • “What’s in it for me” acceptance • Longevity (to earn back the cost in numbers) • Individual or multi player ? • Clark’s “10 years ago why games, now why not”
Considerations for design
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What are we up to?
NATO owned & licensed for NATO
and nations to use for no fee
Ability to offer distributed training
environment , convoy, FAC, C-IED….?
Multinational involvement already,
proven joint training capability
“Live” play 24/7 hosted servers on
internet, Intranet ready
Ability to use as visualisation device
for computer systems as well as for
training and exercise training
development
Over $15M spent by NATO nations 21
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NATO VBS 2
Convoy Training IED TTP’s
NATO Tactics/Doctrine Collation Ops
??????
Skill Building
“Yo-ho-ho and a vat of anthrax! Checking cargo ships for WMD and contraband isn’t exactly swashbuckling. In fact, as a NATO video game makes clear, it’s actually a lot
of dreary, methodical work.”
wired.com
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• User / Customer driven – ISD changeable
• Affiliated with VBS 2 – sharable assets
• Deliverable via multiple platforms
• SCORM compatable
• Multi player adaptable
• State of the art?
• Licensing that fits our needs
Why VBS Worlds ?
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• “Gamer” image
• Self paced training – not institutionalised
• Preparation for next gen of learners
• Meet expectations, “one chance to capture them”
Changing mindsets
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ROI
Immersive learning e-Learning (ADL)
=> $36,000 per student hour => $75,000 per student hour
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Future …
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• Convincing the Generals *+ (Budget holders) this is worth doing (not with “cool” but with metrics)
• Should NATO be involved? (Nations seem to be doing fine …. at least some of them) (Smart Defence – share, cooperate, inform)
• NATO E&T adoption …. Serious engagement - Resources
• AWARENESS (Industry, academia, nations)
• Mobile adoption “Fit the students needs”
• Challenges – Work to solve the ability to share between nations both from industry and goverments
Supreme Allied Commander Transformation
Paul Thurkettle Education & Training Technologies Section
Joint Education Training & Exercises
757 -747-3360
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