Conferences

CADS holds conferences on various topics related to global security, with the aim of providing thought leadership and bringing together experts from Government, Academia and Industry to disseminate knowledge and create a fertile ground for new ideas through cross-disciplinary dialogue.

Upcoming Conferences

The Center’s Defense Industry Energy & Sustainability Summit, to be held in the Spring 2010 (date TBD), will bring together key stakeholders from the Department of Defense, private industry, policymakers, and the academic research community to discuss successful strategies and implementations as well as future challenges. The strategic threat posed to the US military by its reliance on expensive, limited, and substantially foreign-supplied oil is well understood. Massive price fluctuations, susceptibility to disruption of supply in conflict, and the peak oil hypothesis, which posits that after a certain date the rate of oil production will enter permanent decline, all suggest that continued dependence on vast amounts of oil strategically threatens the US military’s ability to operate effectively in the long run.

Previous Conferences

AFRICOM: An Independent Review for the Obama Administration was held on October 28, 2009, and brought together knowledgeable stakeholders for a forum to discuss key questions surrounding AFRICOM near the one-year anniversary of the official rollout of the Command. Through the insights gleaned from this conference, the Center will soon present key policy recommendations and best practices to enhance AFRICOM’s internal (interagency) coherence and consistency of mission as well the clarity with which that mission can be articulated to the domestic U.S. audience and African partners.

The 1st Annual Descartes Conference on Mathematical Methods in Counterterrorism was hosted as a response to the perceieved need and lack of knowledge of how mathematical models and algorithms can be effectively applied to meet counterterrorism needs today. The conference was attended by over fifty distinguished academics and government officials attended. Keynote speakers included US Congressman Curt Weldon, Christopher Darby, CEO of In-Q-Tel, and Dr. Ophir Frieder, Illinois Institute of Technology.