Good afternoon from the Arctic Domain Awareness Center at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
It is unfathomable how fast 2021 continues...we are now in Mid May...and racing towards the end of ADAC's Program Year 7 on the 30th of June, with the start of our Year 8 on 1 July. This and the next few weeks will see a flurry of activity starting with the first elements of the DHS S&T CoE Summit which started today with a Student "Grand Challenge" and continuing through a series of plenary briefings organized into 2 separate tracks and a CoE wide "Tech Exposition" that runs for the bulk of the week. Overall, there are more than 700 people registered for this on-line event. Please consider to join for what you can...and register (plus see more) at the following link: https://cina.gmu.edu/coe-summit-2021/
Next week will provide a unique opportunity to join the Alaska Federation of Natives "Alaska Days 2021" on 25 & 26 May 2021 via Zoom. This is a remarkable event organized by AFN in which ADAC is honored to be a contributing supporter and will include an array of wise and distinguished Arctic, Alaskan and National Leaders. Each day will be a 1/2 day event from 9 AM to 1 PM Alaska (1-5 PM Eastern). Please be on the lookout for the registration at: https://www.nativefederation.org/
On 2-3 June 2021, ADAC is honored to host our Program Year 7 Annual Meeting via Zoom. While these meetings are normally conducted at Headquarters U.S. Coast Guard, this year’s meeting will be conducted via conference call, due to on-going COVID-19 health concerns.
Despite transitioning from in-place to a conference call medium, the Annual Meeting theme is “Finish and Forward…in support of the future Arctic”…which is planned as a summary review of the Center’s current research endeavors and conducting discussions to foster USCG and our partner community’s thinking in better leveraging ADAC in upcoming Program Year 8 and beyond, to include aspects of transition and commercialization as suitable. “Finish” is associated with the DHS S&T OUP Cooperative Agreement that will conclude on 30 June 2022 in accordance with the Notice of Funding Award and “Forward” is oriented to ADAC’s plan to transition to alternative arrangements on 1 July 2022 and onward. As in prior years, the agenda will include a summary discussion regarding the transition of ADAC’s mature research and the initiation of new research associated with ADAC’s recently awarded projects during Program Year 7. Attached is a flyer and the current draft agenda for your review. Please register today at: https://arcticdomainawarenesscenter.org/Events
Later in June, ADAC is co-hosting a short webinar with two fellow Centers of Excellence at Rutgers University (CCICADA) and University of Southern California (CREATE). This is an evaluation of the Suez Canal Incident and the Impact & Implications for the Global Maritime Supply Chain. Please join us for this 90 minute session on Monday, 21 June 2021 at 8 AM Alaska/12 Noon Eastern. For an invitation please send an email to . A corresponding flyer is attached.
We do wish to thank all who joined us for our Arctic Maritime Horizons "Hybrid" Exercise from 4-6 May, to include the array of amazing guest presenters...quite literally, we are simply grateful for the remarkable insights and wisdom from our presenters and participants. We are underway in developing the Exercise report and will have an initial draft configured in a couple of weeks. If/as desired...take a look at the Event hub for an array of materials and videos that supported the exercise. Please see: https://arcticdomainawarenesscenter.org/EventHub_Horizons21
We are also underway with the report from our co-hosted Advancing CANUS Arctic Security Collaboration II workshop from late March and expect to be releasing the ALCOM Arctic Senior Leader Summit 2021 report as soon as the final reviews are completed at Alaskan Command. While we will not generate an associated report, we do wish to offer our sincerest thanks to our presenters and participants who joined us for the Wilson Polar Institute-ADAC Arctic Security Dialogues III on the Trans-Atlantic Arctic. It was an action packed session with quite a robust set of insights. Please take a look at the recording at: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/arctic-security-dialogues-iii-understanding-new-dimensions-trans-atlantic-arctic-security.
With the graduation of a number of our ADAC Fellows recently and the completion of Spring Semester...we can rightly state our pace has never been faster in terms of events and activities. We have also added two new research projects (our Alaska and Arctic Communications and Connectivity Analysis as well as Arctic Facilities and Infrastructure Environmental Change Risk Index) as well as focused on completing a number of maturing research investigations. As summer approaches, we will look forward to transitioning into ADAC Program Year 8 and prepare to transition from remote/telework back to office spaces in advance of fall semester. We do look forward to meeting our new UAA Chancellor (who starts on 1 July 2021), former Alaska State Governor Sean Parnell, while thanking UAA Interim Chancellor Dr. Bruce Schultz for his steady leadership through this past semester.
We hope you will join us at our upcoming events. Thank you in advance for your consideration!