Intelligence chiefs open information technology conference

Jack Gumtow, the Defense Intelligence Agency’s chief information officer, and Lt. Gen. Robert P. Ashley, Jr., the agency’s director, opened the Department of Defense Intelligence Information Systems Worldwide Conference on Tuesday in Tampa.

The theme of this year’s conference is how partnerships with industry can increase resiliency, redundancy, and security.

Gumtow spoke about how the U.S. government and intelligence agencies must identify critical strengths and have a realistic mindset.

“To achieve our goals, we need your help,” Gumtow said. “I need proactive collaboration with our partners. This is a journey, we are moving forward. I need you as my partners, to help me and our collective community to achieve strategic success.”

Ashley also spoke about the importance of partnerships and how working with allies is important while systems are being modernized and infrastructure is being built.

Every day, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data is created, and the data market is forecasted to reach $11.52 billion by 2022.

As data grows, Ashley said, so does the need to process and analyze information in the public domain. In the future, intelligence agencies will rely heavily on the Machine-assisted Analytic Rapid-repository System and open source intelligence.

Gumtow and Ashley spoke in front of an audience of more than 2,200 attendees.