NCT Virtual Asia took place on November 12 and 13, in partnership with the ASEAN Regional Mine Action Center (ARMAC). Created with the objective of enabling the CBRNe, C-IED and EOD community to gather at a time where public gatherings are discouraged across the world, this third edition of NCT Virtual confirmed the success of this new platform. For this Asian edition, representatives of the CBRNe, C-IED, EOD community coming from more than 30 different countries gathered over the duration of two days, showing their willingness to keep the CBRNe community connected! NCT Virtual Asia not only saw the participation of Asian stakeholders, but also of delegations from the United States, Canada, Brazil, Colombia, the Middle East and Europe.
During this two-days event, high-level speakers shared their knowledge during multiple conference sessions chaired by BG (Ret.) William King, while the virtual exhibition gave our over 140 attendees the opportunity to learn about the current technologies available. The realistic and interactive NCT Virtual environment also offered multiple networking opportunities and possibilities to interact with speakers, delegates and exhibitors through private chats, group discussions and video conversations.
NCT Chairman: BG (Ret.) William King
Former Commander, 20th CBRNE Command, U.S. Army, USA
For this Asian edition, different Asian organizations working in the CBRNe field were given the chance to promote their work and current projects, within dedicated Pavilions. Delegates had the opportunity to visit the ARMAC Pavilion, the ANAMA Pavilion, the Counter Terrorism & Jungle Warfare (CTJW) College Pavilion.
By spending an average time of 5 hours 22 minutes on the virtual platform, attendees proved again their interest in our virtual platform and its intuitive way of navigating. With more than 2700 Booth visits and hundreds of chats initiated, NCT Virtual Asia was a success in terms of interactivity and engagement. The NCT Virtual leaderboard contributed to the interactivity of our platform, by promoting actions of our delegates within the virtual platform (like visiting booths, downloading content, or initiating chats). For each action, our delegates could earn points and compete against their peers for a nice reward!
We also wanted to thank you all for your presence during our conference sessions! If you attended the event, the recording of presentation will be made available in the event report mailing. Alternatively, you can contact us for more information.
Conference Day I: November 12th
The Conference began with the opening remarks from NCT chairman BG (ret.) William King, along with Mr. Ilja Bonsen and Ms. Anna Paternnosto from the CBRNe Society. Following the opening remarks, our distinguished speakers have delivered presentations on the topic of ‘Reassessing CBRN threats and their implication for South East and East Asia’. H.E. Gen Phorn Nara, Secretary General of the National Authority for the Prohibition of Chemical, Nuclear, Biological and Radiological Weapons, COL Michael Chua, of the Singapore Civil Defense Force, and COL. Andrew Lawrence Miltner, Chief of the Counter-WMD Combined Joint Interagency Coordination Group (CJIASG) in the United States Forces Korea (USFK) gave their respective analyses on the topic.
During the networking break, the networking lounge in the online environment provided attendees with the opportunity to get together through multiple public chats. Attendees interacted with one another on the topics of medical countermeasures and decontamination, detection and identification, EOD, C-IED and demining, PPE, and other CBRNe related topics. The break was also the occasion for the delegates to discover our Resource Center and learn about our different media partners. The Resource Center was visited 574 times by our attendees.
After the break, our speakers discussed about ‘Persisting Challenges of Mine Action in Post-Conflict Areas’. The first speaker of the session to offer his insights was H.E. Ly Thuch, Senior Minister and First Vice President of the Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority, followed by H.E Prum Sounpraseth, Executive Director of our partner ASEAN Regional Mine Action Centre (ARMAC) and LTG Kanit Chomanan, Director General of the Thai Mine Action Center. Mr. Kiho Kim, Research Director of the Korea Demining Research Center closed the session and the first day of the NCT Virtual Asia.
Conference Day II: November 13th
On the second day, Dr. Makoto Akashi, Director of the Ryugasaki Public Health Center (Japan) gave an opening keynote speech on the COVID-19 Epidemic Outbreak. Dr. Arnel Z. Rivera, Division Chief of the Response Health Emergency Management Bureau of the Philippines Department of Health also gave his expertise on fighting the virus in Philippines, while Dr. Dennis Hruby, Chief Scientific Officer of SIGA Technologies closed the first panel and welcomed everyone to the networking break.
The last conference session was dedicated to lessons learned from countering IEDs in South East and East Asia. BG Basant K. Ponwar, Director of the Counter Terrorism & Jungle Warfare College, Mr. George J. McKerrow, Director of Training at MAC 7 Training Service and DIG Waruna Jayasundara, Commandant of the Police Special Task Force of the Sri Lanka Police gave their expertise on the subject in India, USA and Sri Lanka respectively.
To conclude this second and last day of NCT Virtual Asia, Chairman BG (ret.) William King delivered the event’s closing remarks, together with Mr. Ilja Bonsen, and Ms. Anna Paternnosto. As for the first day of the event, the networking lounge and the exhibition were open for delegates during and in between each conference sessions.
We would like to sincerely thank all the delegates and speakers for their participation, as well as our sponsors, Heyl, Meridian, SIGA and Agilent who made this event possible!
