Connections 2020

Last Updated February 8, 2022

For an archive of Connections 2020 slide decks, visit our proceedings spreadsheet

Working Group 1 (Enhancing Wargaming through AI/ML)

The Connections agenda is available here as a Google sheet.  It also appears further down on this page.  All times are in Eastern Daylight Time (U.S.).

The core conference agenda is principally made up of speakers and panels, due to the constraints of our online format this year.  However, a number of opportunities for game demonstrations, playtests, general gameplay, social gatherings, and interest-based discussion are available to conference participants, thanks to a number of volunteers.  Some require preregistration with the organizer.  See here for the complete list of events outside the main conference agenda, including contact information and registration information.

Below is a copy of the agenda for the core hours, broken down by day and room.  Use the link in the day/room heading to enter that room throughout that day.  The links for each room are different for each day of the conference.

Monday, Room A
Time Session title Speaker(s) Affiliation
1000-1045 Welcome to Connections 2020 Co-Chairs and Hosts Connections US and CNA
1100-1145 Wargaming 101 Matt Caffrey Connections US and AFRL
1200-1245 Wargaming Lessons Learned: FY20 Panel Jeremy F. Sepinsky CNA
1315-1400 Wargame AI and Machine Learning John Tiller John Tiller Software
1415-1500 Adjudication: Theory, Practice, and Swags – Mostly Swags Ed McGrady, Ph.D. CNAS and Monk’s Hood Media LLC
1515-1600 Building Wargaming Capacity in the University Sebastian J. Bae Georgetown University

Monday, Room B
Time Session title Speaker(s) Affiliation
1100-1145 Pandemic Tempest Peter Pellegrino US Naval War College/Valiant Integrated Services
1200-1245 An Introduction to AI and Terminology David Broyles CNA
1315-1400 Maps & Pieces: Graphic Design for Wargames Mike Markowitz CNA
1415-1500 Cyber AWARE – Improving the Efficiency, Effectiveness and Dynamicism of Cyber War Games James Curbo Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
1515-1600 Simulation and Wargaming – Potential with Caution Charles Turnitsa Regent University

Tuesday, Room A
Time Session title Speaker(s) Affiliation
1000-1045 Keynote Robert Work
Former Deputy Secretary of Defense
1100-1145 Wargaming in Finance: What an we learn from the commercial sector? Sale Lilly RAND Corporation
1200-1245 Games in a Cycle of Learning John T. Hanley Jr Naval War College
1315-1400 Overview and key insights from Successful Professional Wargames: A Practitioner’s Handbook Graham Longley-Brown
Connections UK and LBS Consultancy Limited
1415-1500 Preparedness Through Wargaming: Urban Outbreak 2019 and its Applicability to the COVID-19 Pandemic Hank J. Brightman, Ed.D.
Professor & EMC Informationist Chair, U.S. Naval War College
1515-1600 What’s Your Problem? Multi-Method Modeling, Simulation, & Analytics to Understand & Manage Messy Problems Anne M. Johnson
Maritime Security Professional

Tuesday, Room B
Time Session title Speaker(s) Affiliation
1100-1145 SIGNAL Post-Mortem: Lessons Learned Building an Online Experimental Wargaming Platform Jon Whetzel
Sandia National Laboratories
1200-1245 Bringing Commercial Games to Defense Ian McNeil
CEO Matrix Games & Slitherine
1315-1400 Developing Combat Behavior through Reinforcement Learning Capt Jonathan Boron, USMC Naval Postgraduate School
1415-1500 Enhancing Wargames with Realistic Logistics Michael Hugos SCM Globe Corp
1515-1600 OSINT Integration for Multidomain Operations Khaled Basrawi
Air Force Institute of Technology

Wednesday, Room A
Time Session title Speaker(s) Affiliation
1000-1045 Keynote Phil Sabin
1100-1145 Progress on Gaming Tactical Cyber John Curry
Senior Lecturer Games Design and Cyber Security, Bath Spa University, UK
1200-1245 Liminality in Wargame Design James “Pigeon” Fielder Colorado State University
1315-1400 Unreal Engine – Supporting the simulation development community Seb Loze Epic Games – Unreal Engine
1415-1500 The Wargaming Guild: How the Nature of a Discipline Impacts its Craft and Whether it Matters Sawyer Judge CNA
1515-1600 Peering into the Future of AI-enabled Wargaming: Rumination and Conjecture Alec Barker Group W Inc

Wednesday, Room B
Time Session title Speaker(s) Affiliation
1100-1145 Improving AI Competitiveness through Wargaming Larry Lewis CNA
1200-1245 Navy ‘360 Wargaming’ During COVID-19 Will Startin, Ph.D. Booz Allen Hamilton
1315-1400 Design and Execution of Wargames During COVID-19 Chad M. Briggs
University of Alaska Anchorage
1415-1500 Introducing Fog of War Effects into AFSIM Dillon Tryhorn
Student at Air Force Institute of Technology
1515-1600 Wargaming the Tactical Edge of the Stand-in Force: ​ Crisis in the South Pacific Maj Daniel M. Yurkovich, Capt Jonathan Boron, LTC Glenn Hodges, PhD. Naval Postgraduate School

Thursday, Room A
Time Session title Speaker(s) Affiliation
1000-1045 Keynote Colonel Brad Boyd, USA
JAIC Director Joint Warfighting Operations Mission Initiative
1100-1145 Onyx: Wargaming Influence Operations in the Grey Zone Peter Williams
Defence Science & Technology Group
1200-1245 Distributed Gaming Taxonomy Peter Pellegrino
US Naval War College/Valiant Integrated Services
1315-1400 Designing SIGNAL as an Experimental Wargame Joshua Letchford
Sandia National Laboratories
1415-1500 The Wargaming Process, and Metrics for a Successful Wargame Charles Turnitsa Regent University

Thursday, Room B
Time Session title Speaker(s) Affiliation
1100-1145 Better Understanding Wargame Complexity Using Quantitative Metrics Kiran Lakkaraju, Ph.D.
Sandia National Laboratories – CA
1200-1245 Wargame Analysis Algorithms William DeBerry
Air Force Institute of Technology
1315-1400 Conscious and Unconscious Priorities in Referee Adjudication Marc Gacy TiER1 Performance
1415-1500 Preparing Data for ML: From Instrumentation to Ingest Jeffrey Sugden On Target Simulatons
For the working groups each meeting will have a unique link to join for the Thursday 1515-1600 session (you are welcome to attend whichever you prefer, but they will have a 100 attendee cap, so if the working group you select is full, please select an alternate working group):

Working Group 1 (Enhancing Wargaming through AI/ML)

Friday, Room A
Time Session title Speaker(s) Affiliation
1000-1045 Cost Effective or Shiny Toy? Major Tom Mouat MBE Defence Academy of the UK
1100-1145 Wargaming with AlphaZero Mika Cohen
FOI Swedish Defence Research Agency
1200-1245 Distributed Wargaming Challenges Scott Abukoff USINDOPACOM/J32
1315-1400 Course of Action Generation with ML and a COTS Wargame Jeffrey Sugden On Target Simulatons
1415-1500 Connections International Panel Matt Caffrey Connections US and AFRL
1515-1600 Conference Reports Co-Chairs Various

Friday, Room B
Time Session title Speaker(s) Affiliation
1100-1145 Experimental Wargaming at the Nuclear Threshold Andrew Reddie
Sandia National Laboratories
1200-1245 Simulating Future Policy Challenges: A Report from Japan on Two Recent Examples AKUTSU, (Hiro) Hiroyasu
Policy Simulation Division, National Institute for Defense Studies (NIDS)
1315-1400 A Mixed Resolution Approach to the Modeling Pyramid John Luginsland Confluent Sciences, LLC