Sponsored by the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center (ECBC) Corporate Information Office (CIO) and the Program Executive Office Command, Control and Communications-Tactical, the attendees spanned the APG community’s commands including the Research, Development and Engineering Command, the Chemical Materials Activity, the Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center, and the Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity (AMSAA).

The vendors, many of whom both exhibited and gave seminars, were predominately offering information technology services such as cyber security, mobile networking, ruggedized computing, safe data storage, virtual servers, information technology training, and cable networks. However, there were also vendors offering the latest diagnostic instrumentation, heating and cooling utilities, and even customized carrying cases for high tech equipment.

“In a time of travel constraints, the Technology Expo brings a ‘who’s who’ of vendors to share with us the latest in technology and best practices,” said Pamela Kartachak, ECBC’s corporate information officer. “Attendees learn about possible technology solutions to solve their organization’s practical problems at the expo, then schedule a meeting with them later to get the details.”

This was the ninth year for the ECBC CIO-sponsored expo, which is held every spring and fall. It was the fifth time attending the expo for Dennis Phillips, AMSAA chief information officer. “I can get away from work for an hour or so and gather a lot of information quickly while interacting with all of the vendors,” he said. At this expo he attended a vendor’s seminar on machine learning and analytics. “I heard some examples of how the commercial world is applying big data storage and big data analytics and came away with some ideas about possible applications of these tools to my organization, even some that could apply at a broader level in the future.”