Dirk Dubois graduates from the Belgian Military Academy with a master's degree in social and military science in 1985. In the first part of his career, he occupies several operational posts, including abroad, and positions as a staff officer.
From 2007 to 2012 he is a training manager at the ESDC, before joining the Directorate-general for the education of the Belgian MoD. On 01 April 2015, he is appointed as Head of the ESDC. In December 2017, the EU Member States decided to prolong his mandate by consensus until 2022.
Paul Thurkettle is a British NATO civilian working at one of the two NATO strategic commands, Allied Command Transformation, based in Norfolk, Virginia.
His thirty-one-year NATO career and 12 year Royal Air Force service have covered telecommunications, command and control systems, technology and training. In his role as the lead for NATO in adopting technology for education and training, he introduced e-Learning into NATO, covering all aspects of this field from serious games/virtual worlds (Immersive Training) to mobile learning to Transmedia Learning.
Dr. Schatz is a USA Army civilian and an applied human-systems scientist, with an emphasis on human cognition and learning, instructional technologies, adaptive systems, human performance assessment, and modeling and simulation.
As the ADL Initiative Director, Dr. Schatz oversees the program’s comprehensive execution, guides its strategy, and ensures it aligns with USA Department of Defense (DoD)S and Federal government priorities.
Commander (CDR) Geir Isaksen has more than twelve years in the field of Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) and has been responsible for more than twenty e-learning projects, and different R&D projects in the field of e-learning, m-learning, online learning, standardization and emerging technologies.
As a member of the ADL Global Partnership Network, NATO Individual Training/Education Developments and NORDEFCO ADL Forum of Experts, he also works closely with the international community.
Since 2012, Mariusz SOLIS represents NATO International Staff – Operations Division where he manages the defence education programmes that NATO offers to partners. He advises partners on how to build, develop and reform educational institutions in the security, defence and military domain. He is currently a Coordinator for the Defence Education Enhancement Programmes (DEEP), run by NATO in support of capacity building on defence education in 15 partner countries.
He also co-leads DEEP with Ukraine (in the past with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Moldova). Prior to this position, he served several times since 1998 as a diplomat (Minister-Counsellor) in Polish Delegation to NATO, where he was a representative to the Political Committee. He earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Warsaw and the College of Business and Administration with specialisations in International Relations, Political Science, Economics, and Administration. He is also awarded doctor honoris causa by the National Defence University of Ukraine.
