Speakers Bio & Abstract

Biography
Michel Rademaker is the Deputy Director of HCSS www.hcss.nl. He has a degree in Transport and Logistics, obtained at the University of Tilburg. He gained fifteen years of hands-on experience as an officer of The Netherlands Royal Army, where he held various military operational and staff posts and served a term in former Yugoslavia. After leaving the armed forces, Mr. Rademaker went on to work at TNO The Netherlands as a project and programme manager and senior policy advisor for ten years. As NATO RTO project leader, he developed with his teams new serious gaming assessment methods for defence. He conducted several assessments of security technologies, including disruptive ones, and worked on numerous strategic security topics. He has written several book chapters, numerous research reports and articles. He served as secretary of the pilot joint venture TNO Clingendael Centre for Strategic Studies for three years and is one of the co-founders of its successor HCSS. At HCSS he is responsible for business development. He is particularly interested in setting up multi-stakeholder projects on new and upcoming security and political economic themes. For example, with his team he supported the development of the Dutch national security strategy and crisis management exercises. He is one of the initiators of The Hague Security Delta, the biggest security cluster in Europe, and leads projects for this cluster. His fields of expertise include security strategy, policy, concepts and doctrines, technology surveys and assessments, and serious gaming techniques. He frequently acts as moderator in workshops, as a trainer, as guest lecturer at various universities and speaker in conferences, and as a commentator in news media. Follow him on Twitter @michelrademaker Abstract
Earth Observation landedIn the world today the availability of data and information has grown enormously and is indispensable for numerous applications. Earth observation is on of the ways to collect data. In the area of security for example the availability of information can make a big difference in prevention of risks, mitigating threats posed by humans or nature itself. Although very useful, Earth Observation is often still surrounded by ignorance, especially with the general public. At the same time Earth Observation is intensively used in all kinds of ways, e.g. for monitoring of critical infrastructures, measurements on climate change or water management. In the area of defence and security a lot of applications would be useful and are sometimes already in use: planning of military operations; assistance at humanitarian operations; to spot smuggling activities, prevent piracy at sea or map refugee flows. To better make use of the possibilities and economic opportunities this sector has to better collaborate.