At a Rome conference Oct. 23-25, officials from the NATO Communications and Information (NCI) Agency updated Transatlantic Industry leaders on an estimated $2.7 billion upcoming business opportunities in C4ISR and communication capabilities to support NATO missions and operations.
The aim of the conference is to give early warning of potential business opportunities coming in the next 18 months so industry can prepare for competition. Some of the projects are yet to be approved by NATO’s resource committees and may be impacted by changes in NATO’s operations and missions.
Several projects however have already been authorized and call for bids will be launched at the end of 2012 and beginning of 2013.
More than 600 senior European and North American Industry representatives attended what was the Agency’s first Industry Conference following the establishment of the NCI Agency as part of NATO Agency reform.
The new Agency is a result of the merger of the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A), the NATO ACCS Management Agency (NACMA), the NATO Communication and Information Systems Services Agency (NCSA), the ALTBMD Program Office and elements of NATO HQ ICTM.
“The aim of our conference is transparency and early warning so that Industry has time to prepare for potential competitions and that we maximize competition,” said NCI Agency General Manager, Maj. Gen. (ret.) Koen Gijsbers, “I am pleased that we saw a record attendance compared to past events; after the Agency reform we now provide industry with a one-stop shop for NATO C4ISR, cyber and missile defense; in times of austerity this helps to lower the cost of doing business with NATO.”
He added, “We are also seeing interest from Industry in NATO applications and capabilities that–in the spirit of the Secretary General’s Smart Defense and Connected Forces initiatives–can be re-used by nations for their national purposes.
Some of the specific opportunities discussed included: Continued NATO investment in ballistic missile defense; Secure satellite communication capabilities; Cyber defense; Information and communications infrastructure for the new NATO Headquarters; NATO software applications to support multinational operations; and Counter-IED technologies to support NATO operations that leverage lessons learned from 
Afghanistan.
The conference was organized in partnership with the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) TechNet International.
For more about the business opportunities and the new Agency: www.ncia.nato.int or on Twitter: @NCIAAcquisition