News

by Richard Burnette

Orlando Sentinel, May 12, 2013

Alice F. Hayden, 36, is president and co-founder of H2 IT Solutions Inc., a small defense firm in Orlando and a top award winner in the 2013 GameTech/Federal Virtual Challenge. She spoke recently with Orlando Sentinel staff writer Richard Burnett.

CFB: What has winning a national "serious gaming" contest meant for you and your company?Well, first of all, we've gotten a whole lot of resumes from graphic artists, software engineers, developers and gamers — a lot of people who want to work for us now. It's been pretty exciting. We do want to hire a couple of people for some logistics contracts we'll be working on this summer. And we believe the gaming side of the business is going to grow even more as the government uses more virtual training to save money during the budget crisis. So we expect we'll also be doing some more hiring later this year as new work comes in.

4/18/2013
Defense Department Wants Customizable Virtual Training

By Valerie Insinna

ORLANDO — The services are looking for video game training where scenarios can be easily and rapidly customized by commanders, squad leaders and troops, said the Defense Department official in charge of military training readiness.

Too many of the available games are built on proprietary software that takes years to alter, said Frank C. DiGiovanni, Defense Department director of training, readiness and strategy.

“You've got to have agility, to be able to give the end user the ability to use the system the way they want,” he said in a keynote speech April 17 at the Defense GameTech Users' Conference in Orlando.

Often times, simulations are fielded for a specific purpose, DiGiovanni said.  But if they can be modified easily, operators and trainers can find new ways to incorporate the product into their training.

ORLANDO, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35 ORLANDO) -

Central Florida's training-simulation industry is lobbying leaders in Washington to spare them from closures and spending cutbacks over the next decade.

There are over a hundred companies in east Orlando that produce military simulations and employ thousands of people locally.  The people behind the simulations in Orlando say the training can save the Pentagon lots of money, because the technology is designed or built once, but can be used multiple times.

Thomas Baptiste, with the National Center for Simulation, is on a mission to persuade Congress not to cut funding for the area's simulation training cluster. "It's time to double-down on simulation, not reduce it," said Baptiste, "to rely more heavily on simulation as a cost-effective alternative".

The training-simulation industry pumps about $5 billion into Central Florida's economy annually.

And while the sequester's $1.2 trillion in cuts over a decade