NAFAC 2011 Conclusion!

Thank you to all the delegates, conference speakers, and the USNA midshipmen, facutly, staff, and administration for making this year's conference the best yet!

Make sure to keep checking the Facebook page here to see all of the photos once they are uploaded

Hope everyone had a safe and easy journey home!

Good luck and best wishes,
NAFAC 2011

Roundtable Wrap-Up: RT 6-Final Thoughts

Roundtable 6 came up with a few conclusions over the conference’s five discussion times. After debating the government’s role in the global technology market, we decided the government should take a hands off approach. Government intervention only increases the role of lobbyists and forces the United States to use technology that might not be in its best interest. Another key issue discussed was the benefits and disadvantages of the “Internet Age”. Benefits included interconnectedness and the speed, access, and wsealth of information. The major disadvantage discussed was the disconnect between people. As more and more technology is created, person to person interaction drastically increases. We decided people need a good balance of both technology and personal interaction. One of our most interesting discussions involved mobile banking and its potential to bring the developing world out of poverty. Issues also discussed were cloud computing, rare earth metals, and the problems that come with scarcity and abundance.

Our roundtable came up with a few suggestions for future roundtable discussions. While I would not make it mandatory, I would definitely provide all roundtable members with their fellow delegate’s papers before beginning discussion. If our roundtable’s delegates had been able to read each other’s papers before the discussions, we would have spent less time overviewing and more time in deep, meaningful discussion. Another flaw of our roundtable was the amount of time we spent on each topic. I felt we jumped from topic to topic too quickly, thus limiting the depth of our conversations. While this did allow us to discuss a wide range of topics, I think spending more time on less topics might have been more beneficial.

Overall I thought our roundtable ran smoothly. Moderator Rishi Shah did a good job at engaging all the delegates and was open to advice on discussion topics and group events. The delegates interacted well with each other and respected each other’s opinions. NAFAC 2011 was a great success and many of the delegates from roundtable 6 are already planning to return for next year’s conference .

Roundtable Wrap-Up: RT 6-Thursday

On the final day of NAFAC, roundtable 6 discussed the other delegate papers. Nick Deluca presented his thoughts on rare earth elements and the problems China’s current domination of the market pose. Sam Tan argued abundance of materials breaks more things than scarcity and asked if we should create artificial scarcity to regulate the economy. He closed by stating despite our technological advances, time and talent will always be scarce.

Roundtable Wrap-Up: RT 6-Wednesday

On the second day of NAFAC, roundtable 6 discussed Benjamin Riesser’s (University of North Carolina – Greensboro) paper on cloud computing. In it, Ben proposed that IT scarcity will not be an issue due to the innovation of new technology (like cloud computing). Since its recent creation, cloud computing has enabled companies to store their information off site, freeing up office space where servers would normally go and diminishing the need for IT workers. Cloud computing encourages economies to scale and reduces scarcity.

Additionally, roundtable 6 discussed the challenges of this new “Internet Age”. No state owns the internet as it is a common pool resource. Information easily crosses borders with little control by state governments. The roundtable concluded the day by asking, “Should the international community try to regulate the internet?”

Roundtable Wrap-Up: RT 14-Thursday

Thursday morning’s roundtable focused on the impact of social media. The delegates voiced that social media immerses us in the opinions of others, particularly in those of our friends. Kevin expressed his concern for how governments are able to use social networks to incriminate individuals who voice thier opinions to friends and strangers on the web. CDR Hodges sees the news taking objective subjects with objective answers and molding them into “what do you think?”-type topics. Donald inserted that social media is only a tool to act on something that individuals have stirring within themselves. Social media offers both a medium and a source of courage to speak out on what individuals feel is needed be voiced.

The roundtable discussed the effects of social media on our non-virtual social lives. CDR Hodges stated that technologies accelerate human tendencies. Which was followed by Nate’s opinion that there will always be a yearning for the human element. Tying in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the delegates concluded that there will always be voids that technology will not be able to fill.

Where do we go from here? Shelby thinks that we are in the era of citizen journalism and that society is likely to continue to steer down that path. Kacie envisions that the media in the future, very much as it is today, will be directed by money. In closing, the delegates came to an agreement that although we have uncharted waters ahead of us, we will all benefit greatly from our generation’s use of media in the internet age.

Roundtable Wrap-Up: RT 14-Wednesday Part 2

Wednesday afternoon’s discussion was centered around the examination of the influence that business has on the “fourth estate”. The table moderator, Donald Bowers, used the United States’ two major media conglomerates, Time Warner and Viacom, as prime examples of the impact that big business had on the information we receive. The amount of news and entertainment networks that fall under these two corporations illustrated how widespread the decisions of each company’s board of directors has on the dissemination of information.

Daniel, an officer in the Royal Navy, educated the delegates on the how Great Britain's state-run news outlet, the BBC, is funded and operated. Daniel’s knowledge of state-run news agencies led the group towards discussing the pros and cons of both government-run and commercialized media outlets. After deliberating the inevitable biases that would be formed by both government-run and privatized news agencies, the table delegates concluded that it is preferable to have biased projected by private companies rather than by governments.

Roundtable Wrap-Up: RT 14-Wednesday

We were joined this morning by students and faculty from South River High School.This morning’s roundtable discussion began with table moderator, Donald Bowers, showing a clip of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. The discussion then turned toward Admiral Blair and his address to the conference this morning on cyber security. Daniel, an officer in the Royal Navy, offered his insight with regard to how the United States’ stance on cyber freedom differs slightly from that of the United Kingdom. Andrea, a midshipman from the Italian Naval Academy, voiced his opinion on how positions on cyber security are relatively uniform throughout the continent of Europe. The table’s senior advisor, CDR Hodges, examined the notion of sovereignty and how it is concrete when relating to people and nations, but is blurred when dealing with information and data. The discussion naturally leads into the examination of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange’s dissemination the sensitive information. Enid, from Albania, questions how the First Amendment plays into the media’s release of information that could potentially put people’s lives at risk. Shruti, from India and studying at York College, brought up the assistance that the media unintentionally the terrorist in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. Lance, a midshipman from the U.S. Naval Academy, proposed that the purpose of the media was to promote free democracy based on free risk.

Donald added to the discussion through airing a Frontline special on the U.S. government run Swift program that was reveled by The New York Times in 2007 as well as the change in information policy .The group then deliberated the role that the media has in its control over the government and foreign policy. The question of whether or not media outlets should withhold sensitive information was examined. Kacie, from Virginia Tech, concluded that a media outlet’s credibility would be greatly at risk if it was ever disclosed that they were withholding information from their audience.