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

paul.thurkettle@act.nato.int

757 -747-3360

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