Second Baltic Defence Innovation Conference

The Baltic Defence College hosted the Second Baltic Defence Innovation Conference, which held place in Vilnius, Lithuania on 7th-9th of December 2016. This was a continuation of first Baltic Defence Innovation Conference, which took place in Tallinn, Estonia in 2013.

The first conference was envisioned as a forum for generating and exchanging innovative ideas on defence capabilities, development and promoting novel solution to the current and future conceptual, organisational, operational and technological challenges confronting the armed forces of the three Baltic states.

The second conference was continuation of this tradition. It helped in depth exploration of some topics of particular importance for the militaries of Baltic states, focusing primary on the future of land brigades and the local as well as international inputs in its continued modernization.

During the conference participants heard reports on five different main sessions, which raised different aspects of defence innovations, future warfare or presentations of military industry in Baltic states. Also there were three parallel sessions, which covered topics like energy sustainability, dual use of technology, host nation support, automated systems, signal awareness and digital battlefield projects.

The guest speakers represented various institutions. From officials, military academies, civilian universities, military units, think tanks, international institutions such as European Defence Agency, NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence, NATO ACT Innovation Hub.

Conference was a great platform also to conduct meetings with representatives of different defence industry corporations of the Baltic states and beyond. Participants could visit exhibitions prepared by Heckler & Koch, Milrem, Litaktak, Haix and many more. It was a great platform in exchanging various ideas.

In the final remarks, Commander of Baltic Defence College Major General Andis Dilāns expressed his acknowledgements for all participants and hope that tradition of organizing this conferences will be continued.