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The Secretary of State for Defence, Agustín Conde, closed out the 5th National Congress on Defence and Security R&D, which was held from 22 to 24 November at the Infantry Academy in Toledo and organised by the Ministry of Defence’s Sub-Directorate General for Planning, Technology and Innovation (SDGPLATIN), in collaboration with Isdefe.
The Congress has turned into a prominent gathering for presenting the results of the most recent technological and scientific work, facilitating the exchange of expertise, ideas and research projects in various areas of knowledge.
The Secretary of State endorsed this view by recalling how R&D is one of the priorities of the department he leads, and that the findings of the Congress could be included in the upcoming 2019 Strategy for Defence Technology.
Along these same lines, the Directorate General for Armaments and Materiel’s Deputy Director of Planning, Technology and Innovation, Vice Admiral Jesús Manrique Braojos, underscored the importance of R&D to defence and noted how, among the congress’s objectives, the DESEI+d offers the opportunity to pass on the latest technological advances to the Armed Forces, which furthers the work of researchers and technology developers, boosts corporate growth and helps end users.
Also taking part in the closing ceremony were the Director of Learning, Training, Instruction and Evaluation, Mr Amador Fernando Enseñat y Berea, the Director of the Toledo Infantry Academy, Coronel Francisco Javier Marcos Izquierdo and Mr Francisco Quereda, Idefe’s CEO.
Our CEO noted how the company’s mission includes learning and anticipating the repercussion that emerging technologies can have on the Administration, and on Isdefe’s ability to support the government’s incorporation into the public sector.
Through this solid collaboration in innovation with the Ministry of Defence, Isdefe has, since the first DESEI+d Congress in 2013, actively participated in its organisation, adding in 2016 the creation of the Isdefe “Antonio Torres” R&D Award, as part of its commitment to excellence in innovation.
The panel for Isdefe’s R&D award, made up by the Congress’s permanent science committee, presented it to the work on “Electronic noses for detecting home-made explosives”, written by Raúl López Sánchez, lead materials researcher at the Materiales & CBRN Department of the National Institute for Aerospace Technology (INTA), as its lead author and researcher. The paper was co-authored by Daniel Pellico, Roberto Díez, Luis Debán and Rafael Pardo.
During the Congress’s opening ceremony, Isdefe’s Director of Business Development, Mr Jesús Alonso, highlighted Isdefe’s innovative drive and some of the projects that the company has launched, like the Horizons Network, during the roundtable with Vice Admiral Jesús Manrique Braojos, the Managing Director for the Integration of Logistical Functions at the MALE, Division General Mr Guillermo Manuel Fernández Sáez, the spokesperson and councilman for the Toledo city government, Mr. José Pablo Sabrido Fernández and the Director of the Infantry School.