Nearly 200 participants from the State University System of Florida and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) gathered at UCF on Oct. 17-18 for the first Florida Defense Science and Technology Symposium (FDSTS) to learn from each other and strengthen research partnerships.
UCF hosted the symposium on its main campus and co-organized the event with the University of South Florida and the Florida High Tech Corridor.
The symposium brought together some of the best minds in Florida to equip them with the skills and knowledge to successfully engage with DoD.
Additionally, the symposium featured presentations and lectures by distinguished speakers on opportunities within various DoD agencies, strategies for creating winning proposals, building effective relationships between research faculty and DoD officers, identifying and cultivating critical fields for research and development, poster presentations and faculty lightning talks. The research and collaboration discussion focused on artificial intelligence (AI), cyber security, modeling and simulation, space technologies, and lasers and optics.
Participants included local and federal defense agency representatives and officers from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the Army Research Office (ARO), and the U.S. Special Operations Command.
Attendees also had plenty of opportunities to bolster their connections with each other between panels, during breaks and in networking sessions.

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The symposium was well-received, and organizers are hopeful it will become a regular event, said Saiful Khondaker, UCF assistant vice president for research advancement.
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Learn more information about the FDSTS .