COL John Antal served 30 years in the Army and has commanded combat units from platoon through regiment and served on division, corps, and multinational staffs. He also served at the National Training Center and has extensive experience in Korea, serving multiple tours on the DMZ. After retiring from the Army, COL Antal was selected by Microsoft Games Studio to help develop an interactive entertainment company in Texas. He then became the Executive Director for Gearbox Software with studios in Texas and Canada. He led teams to develop multiple AAA+ video games and is an innovator in the interactive gaming and learning industry. As an author, COL Antal has published 16 books and hundreds of magazine articles. He has served as Editor of the Armchair General magazine, and appeared on TV and the radio to discuss leadership, historical, and national security issues. He is a freelance correspondent for Euro-based Military Technology (Mönch Publishing Group) and Mittler Report Verlag.
In today’s podcast, COL Antal discusses the implications of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict, the psychological effects of drone warfare, and the future of maneuver. The following bullet points highlight key insights from our interview with him:
Ten lessons learned from the Second Nagorno-Karabakh conflict are:
Stay tuned to the Mad Scientist Laboratory for our next episode of “The Convergence,” featuring our interview with the Undersecretary of the Navy, the Honorable James “Hondo” Geurts and Dr. Zachary Davis, Senior Fellow, Center for Global Security Research, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, discussing how to think radically about the future, capitalize on talent, and unleash technological convergences to out-compete our adversaries, and when necessary, defeat them decisively in conflict, on 15 April 2021.
In this latest episode of “The Convergence,” we talk with Dr. Claire Nelson, the Founder and President of the Institute of Caribbean Studies (ICS). Per Forbes, Dr. Nelson “is a strategic thinker, change agent, keynote speaker and innovator,” and is listed among that publication’s 50 Leading Female Futurists. Dr. Nelson is also Ideation Leader of The Futures Forum and Sagient Futures LLC, which provides strategic foresight and development futures consulting. She is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the World Futures Review and The Journal of Futures Studies, and is an emerging voice as a Black Futurist. In today’s podcast, Dr. Nelson discusses a smart futures approach to forecasting, technologies and science in small island nations, and positive impacts on the future: Everything is a system. National challenges can be viewed from a systems approach by breaking them down to the sum of the parts and then adding them back up. You have to pick the right tool for the problem you are trying to solve. Future technology is often presented as utopian. But we need to filter that idea through the smart futures lens. What happens when the technology fails, is compromised, or hacked? There must be forethought about the legal and ethical systems and processes. All of these aspects must be part of the framework. Our brains oftentimes can’t negotiate many and varying opposing forces as mathematical equations. But if we translate engineering and mathematical concepts into a story, our minds can more readily assimilate, accept, and understand these complex concepts. Similarly, if we break complex and interconnected systems of systems down into characters in a story, we’re better able to connect with ...
While Shubhi Mishra, founder and CEO of Raft, is a lawyer and data scientist by training, she’s better known as an intentional government technology (GovTech) disruptor at heart. She loves solving complex problems, even the kind that give you a headache while you’re working through them. But that process of discovery, of realization, and coming to a solution makes it all worthwhile. Her passion is working with bleeding-edge technology focused on the defense sector. Raft provides an innovation space for people who are similarly mission-focused, tackling vexing challenges with passion and enthusiasm. Ms. Mishra seeks to inspire other women in and out of the GovTech space and excite them enough to join the movement of providing better solutions and services to the defense industry through sustainable, emerging technology. In today’s interview, Ms. Mishra discusses wicked problems in national security; finding creative, mission-focused solutions; and equipping the DoD with sustainable, emerging technology. The following bullet points highlight key insights from our interview: Raft’s strategy seeks to build a data fabric, or mesh, on top of data lakes, to reduce silos and increase communication among data resources. This enables faster decision making, which ultimately benefits our warfighters. When delivering a data product, it is important to maintain a human-centered design which considers for whom you are building the product. It is critical to experiment with the project and obtain user feedback. When working with historical datasets, one must consider: [1] If the full data is present. Can other datasets be integrated to get a better picture?[2] How will we measure the success of the algorithm we are using the data to build? Will we obtain a new result, or are we simply pattern matching? [3] Who can we get comments from ...
In this latest episode of “The Convergence,” we talk with Kara Cunzeman, Lead Futurist for Strategic Foresight, with the Center for Space Policy and Strategy, at The Aerospace Corporation. In this role, Ms. Cunzeman is focused on cultivating a formalized approach to futures thinking through the strategic foresight Corporate Strategic Initiative (CSI), helping the enterprise adequately prepare its organizations and capabilities to proactively shape the future through innovative approaches across strategy, acquisition, science and technology portfolio management, policy, and operations. In this episode, we discuss strategic foresight, the future of space research, public-private partnerships, and advice for the next generation of engineers. Some of the highlights include: How we must conceptualize the use of space is rapidly evolving and it requires dynamic and innovative thinking to keep up with an expanding range of possibilities and competition in space. Strategic foresight practitioners aren’t usually valued until something unusual happens that mainstream thinking hadn’t considered. We can’t predict, but we can prepare, and having foresight helps us alleviate pains and tensions in society when something unexpected happens. We try to keep pace with strategic competitors in space, which is hard to do in the gray zone of modern warfare. Speed will be our security, requiring us to modularize technical efforts and eliminate bureaucracy and red tape. The phrase “keeping at pace” sounds reactionary. The real question is how do we develop and execute our own vision while precluding our competitors from dictating our agenda? While it may seem counter-intuitive, the Government can actually take risks where private industry cannot. Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and the National Security community need to engage with each other more. This collaboration will yield the greatest possible outcome. If you enjoyed ...