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Microsoft defense and intelligence at Pacific Future Forum

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Microsoft is pleased to be sponsoring a key event for the United Kingdom’s defense industry: The Pacific Future Forum. Delivered in partnership with HM Government and the Royal Navy, the Pacific Future Forum is one of the UK’s keynote international events of 2021.

Learn more about the event and Microsoft’s participation below, and we hope you will register to join us.

About the Pacific Future Forum (PFF)

The Pacific Future Forum 2021 is an international summit dedicated to strengthening relationships between democratic nations. The Forum is an opportunity to hear directly from preeminent thinkers in defense, security, trade, and technology, from both public and private sectors, as they explore reinvigorating our economies, addressing the problem of climate change, and harnessing new technologies to build back a better world.

Microsoft makes a splash

This year we are proud to be supporting this event in a variety of on-demand sessions and keynotes. We’ll be sharing how we partner with defense agencies and the defense industrial base (DIB) across the globe to help them promote stability and security for residents, nations, and multinational alliances. Learn more about how Microsoft empowers and enables defense and intelligence agencies and our DIB partners at our newly launched website.

This past July 22, Kate Maxwell, Microsoft’s Chief Technology Officer, Defense and Intelligence, Worldwide Public Sector led a panel on Driving a Cloud-Enabled Defense Posture, with colleagues including:

  • Brigadier Ian Langford​, Director General Future Land Warfare, Australia Defence Force.
  • Air Commodore Carl Nixon​, Chief Information Office, New Zealand Defence Force.
  • David Appel​, Vice President, C2 Digital Solutions, Raytheon Intelligence & Space.
  • Amelia Gould​, BAE​, Combat Systems Portfolio Director-Maritime.
  • Gus Mac-Gregor-Millar​, Microsoft​, General Manager of Worldwide Defense and Intelligence.
  • Brigadier D J Cheesman MBE Royal Marines​, CTO to the Navy Board.
  • Wallis Laughrey​, Raytheon​, VP, Strategy and Chief Transformation Officer​, Raytheon Intel and Space.

Maxwell led the panel through a discussion on how cloud technology can empower militaries to innovate at speed, improve operations, and enhance national security. The group also covered how COVID-19 has changed the defense and intelligence landscape, as well as its impacts on digital-transformation efforts and what agencies are doing culturally (people and processes) to enable such transformation. Watch the on-demand connect session on the PFF website.

Additionally, on October 21, 9:45 AM BST (4:45 AM EST), Rick Wagner, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President for Microsoft Federal, will lead a panel on Enhancing Intelligence Cooperation in The Pacific Region. Panelists will discuss evolving security challenges in the Indo-Pacific, with terrorism, cybersecurity, foreign interference, and organized crime threatening global security.

The panel also will focus on how to strengthen and deepen cooperation in the region, and build a more multilateral, cooperative security architecture to counter these threats. Finally, it will address current bottlenecks and how to develop a framework for information and intelligence sharing to defend our shared values to ensure peace and stability in the region.

Finally, Microsoft will be participating in two additional sessions. The first will be a Block 5: Partner Spotlight Session on October 20 at 15:45 BST (10:45 AM EST) led by Bill Chappell, Azure Global/ VP of Mission Systems at Microsoft. Chappell will provide an overview of Azure Space, and will share mission solutions Microsoft is developing for space, including geospatial analytics.

The second and final Lab Session Block 1 will be held on October 21 at 15:30pm BST (10:30 AM EST), hosted by Microsoft leaders Angela Heise, CVP for Defense and Intelligence; Gus MacGregor-Millar, General Manager, Worldwide Defense & Intelligence; and Hugh Eaton, Vice President, Worldwide Government. The panel titled People & Potential: Building for The Future, While Promoting Peace and Stability in A Fractured World, will share ideas on building Defense and Intelligence agencies for the future, focusing on four key themes of:​

  1. Digital transformation: to drive operation efficiency​.
  2. Skills: to empower people and build workforce of the future​.
  3. Security: physical and digital security of people, data and infrastructure​.
  4. Resilience: modernizing legacy infra and investing in interoperability and greater connectivity.

Microsoft is committed to the conversations enabled at the PFF this year, and we encourage you to join us by registering for the event. Learn more about Microsoft’s continued commitment to defense and intelligence agencies at our newly launched website.