Saab is one of the main sponsors of the 2nd edition Border Surveillance Conference in Brasilia and is participating with speakers on common operating picture for Border safeguarding.
Border Safeguarding is constantly challenged by the ever-changing threats of the 21st century and is vital to providing a strong defense against external threats such as international terrorist, drugs and foreign disease. It incorporates all applications of land, air and naval power designed to detect, preempt, respond to, mitigate, and recover from the full spectrum of incidents and threats to the country, whether man-made or natural.
Achieving a common operating picture amongst multiple agencies, organizations and even amongst key individuals of the same agency who are geographically dispersed is in most instances difficult to achieve. This puts pressure on all role players involved in Border Safeguarding to provide a Common operating picture.
Saab is one of the world leaders in Command and Control systems and through the effective integration and deployment of such a system a common operating picture for Border Safeguarding can be obtained. A command and control system must be flexible enough to enable the integration of legacy systems as well as a range of sensors and other enabling systems from all the role players involved in Border Safeguarding in order to ensure that each and everyone receive the same Common Operating Picture.
“Everyone must have “the picture”, the same picture, the only picture, fully integrated, secure, identified, in time, covering all land, sea and airborne forces”, says Cobus Valentine.
Cobus Valentine has thirty years of military service in operational environment during which period he was deployed on several external deployments. His military service included appointments such as Battalion Second in Command, SO1 Operational Plan at Headquarters 46 SA Brigade, Second in Command of the South African Protection Support Detachment in Burundi, Officer Commanding Headquarters Unit 46 SA Brigade and Officer Commanding Witwatersrand Rifles. Cobus holds the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and is also the current Reserve Force Officer Commanding for the Mechanized Infantry Regiment. Since July 2005 Cobus has been working for Saab Systems Grintek in Pretoria as a Senior C4ISR Domain Specialist.
„The Security Blueprint for the FIFA Soccer World Cup 2012 event in South Africa was also presented as part of this paper. The ”security plan” as utilized by South Africa was a “winning one”. Prepared for a range of eventualities, the threats of terror, hooliganism and serious (organized) crime did not materialize. Incidents dealt with during the duration of the World Cup within the identified security “enclaves” (hotels, transport routes, training venues, fan parks and stadiums) were relatively minor“, says Ben Groenewald.
Retired Major General Ben Groenewald from South Africa was one of the speakers from Saab. Although Ben retired as a member of the South African Police Force in 2010 with a formidable career behind him such as coordinating the planning and execution of mega events like Rugby World Cup (1995), World Athletic Championships (1998), The ICC World Cup (2003) and various other international sporting and cultural events in South Africa he is still actively involved in sharing his knowledge and experience to the Security and Safety community across the globe. In 2005 he was appointed as the chairperson of the Planning Committee responsible for the planning, coordination and execution of the safety and security for FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa.
Source: http://www.defpro.com/news/details/33355/?SID=03b009407b6ddc0a5b918638df4fa6cb
