Photo By Robert Fluegel | The 2025 Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association International (AFCEA)...... read more read more
The 2025 Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association International (AFCEA) Hampton Roads IT/Cyber Summit, held Aug. 12-14, brought together key stakeholders from the Navy, Department of Defense, and the private sector to collaborate on addressing pressing challenges and exploring future opportunities in maritime IT and cybersecurity. The event drew over 1,000 industry representatives and 500 virtual attendees, fostering a dynamic environment for dialogue and partnership. The event featured expert-led sessions on cutting-edge technologies, innovative cyber defense strategies, and IT modernization initiatives essential for the evolving maritime domain to ultimately increase lethality and warfighting capability.
A highlight of the summit was the Maritime IT Strategic Leaders Panel on Aug. 13, featuring Naval Information Forces (NAVIFOR) Chief Information Officer (CIO), Mr. Eric Markland, Lt. Gen (ret) Jerry Glavy, Mr. Louis Koplin, and Mr. Richard Okrasinski. The panel was expertly moderated by Capt. (ret) Skip Hizer.
During his opening remarks, Mr. Markland emphasized the critical importance of modernizing digital infrastructure to achieve a decision advantage in future conflicts. "Winning the high-end fight hinges on modernizing our platforms and digital infrastructure at speed and scale,” he stated. “Cybersecurity is national security, and our policies must reflect this by treating it as a war-fighting imperative. This requires modernizing the defense industrial base to be secure by design, resilient, and agile enough to operate at machine speed.”
Markland further outlined the Navy’s need for secure, intuitive, adaptable, and interoperable solutions from the outset. He stressed the importance of providing warfighters with accessible development tools for rapid prototyping, testing, and improvement based on direct feedback. “High-tech prototypes should be placed in the sailors’ hands early so they can begin developing tactics and techniques before the fight arrives.”
Markland highlighted the transformative potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in warfighting. “The most significant change in war-fighting capability is AI and how we are going to use it, more specifically, how we are going to integrate it into our operational level command and control, specifically our Maritime Operation Centers (MOCs),” said Markland. “These MOCs are our warfighting platforms and our ability to fight from them; the speed of decision will define success in future conflict.”
The AFCEA Hampton Roads IT/Cyber Summit reinforced its commitment to fostering knowledge sharing and cross-sector engagement, providing attendees with valuable insights into the integration of secure and innovative digital solutions crucial for the maritime domain.
NAVIFOR’s mission is to generate, directly and through our leadership of the IW Enterprise, agile and technically superior manned, trained, equipped, and certified combat-ready IW forces to ensure our Navy will decisively DETER, COMPETE, and WIN.
For more information on NAVIFOR, visit the command Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/NavalInformationForces/ or the public web page at https://www.navifor.usff.navy.mil.
| Date Taken: | 08.13.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 08.25.2025 11:59 |
| Story ID: | 546389 |
| Location: | NORFOLK, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 53 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, NAVIFOR CIO Participates in Maritime IT Modernization Panel at AFCEA Summit, by Robert Fluegel, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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