NZIIP Annual Conference &
Intelligence Community Awards

Annual Conference

14 October 2021 – Tiakiwai Conference Centre at the National Library, Wellington

8.30am registrations open, 9.00am start

The NZIIP year started out with a strategic planning day resulting in a new vision of creating a connected and skilled intelligence community to enable excellence for people in the intelligence profession. From this, our new mission has become to grow and connect the intelligence professional and profession through participation, partnerships, and protection.

This year’s conference focuses on this theme throughout, through a more interactive event with panel discussions and working groups.

Setting the scene, it will start with strategic views of the intelligence sector to then establish where we currently are. Next we’ll be delving into what this means for the profession practically through a panel and working groups. The panel will hear from a Māori Biosecurity Intelligence Network, among others, to develop understanding on a properly organic approach to kaitiakitanga and intelligence.

This is followed by working groups facilitated by Mubin Shaikh in Toronto and Andy Roberts in Washington DC, to hear their views respectively on the intelligence professional’s role in partnering with vulnerable communities and increased participation through open-source intelligence activities among our communities.

Andy Roberts was previously head of DIA Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) (US Defense Intelligence Agency) and is now a fellow at the Rand Institute. He will lead a facilitated discussion on OSINT career paths and future skills, focusing on greater collector representation across intelligence professional development.

Meanwhile Mubin Shaikh, Professor of Public Policy at Seneca College Toronto will lead a facilitated discussion on analysing and partnering with vulnerable communities. Mubin was previously a Jihadist with the Taliban, who self-de-radicalised and has since led de-radicalisation programmes and partnerships with at-risk communities. Mubin’s facilitated discussion was made possible by Babel Street.

The conference will also discuss the NZIIP Diversity Assessment shortly to get under way, and a panel on the practical applications of cultural competencies in intelligence workplaces.

We’ll then finish with a strategic commentary on the future of a more diverse and inclusive intelligence profession, considerate of how participation, partnership, and protection can be woven appropriately through organisational and cross-sector intelligence efforts.