ABSTRACT
During his 31 years of service in the Australian Army, Matthew Ilic was considered an expert in planning, building and maintenance of field communications infrastructure and has worked at the tactical, operational and strategic levels for Army and the Australian Defence Force in a variety of appointments. During these operations the critical nature of fast, reliable, secure and high capacity was vital. The volume of data to be analysed, transmitted and stored with these deployed operations highlighted the need for low latency, high bandwidth networks. The tactical, operational and strategic requirements for military use warrants a specialised design of the communications network. Additionally diplomatic power of a national communications network installed and operated offshore is also very powerful in the greyzone struggle. Matthew Ilic deployed on Operations ASTUTE, CATALYST, KRUGER, SLIPPER and ACCORDION leading teams to install communications nodes. The most significant of these was Force Installation Team 31 which saw Matthew Ilic command the team responsible for the Middle East Region Information, Communications and Technology Refresh across all Australian nodes in the Middle East from 2016 - 2018. During this briefing Dr Illic will explore new technologies such as LEO satellites to provide reliable pathways for secure aggregated data. Modern networking with its massive capacity increases in fibre and LEO are evolving at a rate that can match the applications and functionality deployed and needed by Defence operations.

BIOGRAPHY
Matthew Ilic is proud to be a member of the Vocus team. He is currently employed as the Development Manager - Government and Strategic Projects. It is a role that marries his passion for ensuring the best services are available to our soldiers, sailors and airfolk whilst experiencing the excitement of working in a team that is innovative and progressive. During his 31 years of service in the Australian Army, Matthew Ilic was considered an expert in planning, building and maintenance of field communications infrastructure and has worked at the tactical, operational and strategic levels for Army and the Australian Defence Force in a variety of appointments. Matthew Ilic deployed on Operations ASTUTE, CATALYST, KRUGER, and ACCORDION leading teams to install communications nodes. The most significant of these was Force Installation Team 31 which saw Matthew Ilic command the team responsible for the Middle East Region Information, Communications and Technology Refresh across all Australian nodes in the Middle East from 2016 - 2018. Matthew Ilic commenced his last fulltime appointment in the Army at Headquarters Forces Command as the Staff Officer Grade One Communications, Information Systems, Electronic Warfare in January 2020. In this role he was responsible for ensuring all units had the necessary communications equipment, network connections, and skilled staff to support ADF contingencies. Matthew Ilic also actively supported the incorporation of new programs and projects into the Army and enabled their grouping into useful capability. Matthew Ilic holds a Doctorate from the University of Sydney in the field of psychology (Group Dynamics); two Masters of Science Degrees (Information Technology and Clinical Psychology) from the Universities of NSW and Sydney; as well as a Masters of Military Studies from the Australian National University.