Qu Organizes Workshop on Emerging Cyber War-Fighting Technologies

Gang Qu, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and the Institute of Systems Research (ISR) with an appointment in the Maryland Cybersecurity Center (MC2), recently organized a two-day workshop focusing on the future roles and impact of information technologies on war-fighting.

The workshop was held in College Park, Md., from March 10 -11 and was sponsored by the U.S. Army Research Office (ARO). Approximately 30 experts from academia, government agencies, and industry were invited to attend the event, which looked at how information technologies will co-evolve with future technologies for key war-fighting functions.

“We cannot visualize information technologies of 2050 while anchored in mental images of war-fighting tools and techniques of 2010,” says Alexander Kott, a co-organizer of the event from the Army Research Laboratory. “Thus, we have to explore visions of both informational and physical aspects simultaneously.”

Qu says the workshop was productive and will lead to more discussions on how to better prepare soldiers.

“The workshop concentrated on emerging technologies and how they can be used in the ground combat field to give our soldiers an edge,” Qu says. “Cybersecurity is one of the most frequently mentioned themes. There are a lot of interesting discussions to be had on security issues related to war-fighting operations, countermeasures, and counter-countermeasures.”