HSCB FOCUS 2011 Conference Review

This year’s conference focused on the urgent need to pull together technology and techniques from both the social science and physical communities. In the past the dominant emphasis has been on the modeling aspect. While this approach has caught the attention of the government it is not outside of the lab and research world enough to transition into the war fighter’s hands for exploitation in solving situational awareness  problems. Training is a key aspect of the HSCB paradigm .The value of training is rated highly by those that have used simulations that can show how to behave in a variety of situations and hone both culture-general and culture-specific skills. The ability to use high fidelity computer graphics that have created simulated scenarios of authentic missions that embed cultural dilemmas are becoming invaluable in training forces deploying to theater . Through the combination of real sensor data with models and realistic speech the war fighter can experience a life like engagement that he can apply various techniques on before encountering the real thing. Mistakes made in this environment can be corrected and form the foundation from which a real experience level can be built on. Human Terrain Teams,   using this type of approach could plan for missions based on the types of locals they are likely to engage with and thus have a very scripted message constructed when they actually reach the village they are collecting data from.