CEO wins military award two years running!

Donald Clark, CEO, Epic Group plc, was given a speaker award for the second year running at ITEC. In addition he has been invited to speak on the 'Military-entertainment complex' at the world's largest military training and simulation conference in Orlando in November.

Mr. Clark’s talk on the Military-entertainment Complex, as opposed to the Military-Industrial Complex described by Eisenhower, looked at movies, the internet, games and consumer devices and their potential effect on military training. There has been a shift away from straight weapons training towards knowledge-based training and that's where games, e-learning and consumer devices come in.

Movies have been used by the military and vice-versa. We looked at Battleship Potemkin, The Battle of Algiers, Braveheart and Kingdom of God, where kit and armies have literally been rented out. The Irish army was used for Braveheart (not a Scot in sight!) and the Moroccan Army for the Kingdom of God. The internet was shaped by the military. ADL and SCORM, military initiatives, have shaped the standards landscape. Huge initiatives such as eArmyU, AKO, NKO show that the internet is now shaping military training.

The military also feeds the games industry and the games industry feeds the military. America's Army has over 5.2 million registered players; 3 million have completed basic training, over 1.34 billion missions played and it is rated a TOP 5 action game. 90% of the 75,000 US recruits are casual gamers (ICT) and 30% hardcore gamers (ICT). The games world is truly part of the military-entertainment complex.

Lastly, consumer devices such as DVD, MP3 players, mobiles and consoles all have a potential role in military learning.