--NETWORK AND INFORMATION SCIENCES INTERNATIONAL TECHNOLOGY ALLIANCE

Together the United Kingdom (UK) Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the US Department of the Army Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Acquisition , Logistics, and Technology) through the US Army Research Laboratory have been exploring mechanism s of improved research collaboration that would create a critical mass of government, private sector, and academia scientist, engineers, and facilities/equipment focused on solving the military technology challenges in network centric warfare for coalition operations. The International Technology Alliance (ITA) Program is a new bilateral cooperative technology concept planned by the Governments to achieve this goal. In order to provide an opportunity for interested parties to network and learn more about the ITA program, two Opportunity Conferences were held, one on 01 April 2005 in Washington, DC and the other on 07 April 2005 in London, UK. A revised Draft Program Bulletin (Parts I through VIII) has been posted to the ITA Program Website: http://www.usukita.com/. A Final Program Bulletin is expected to be available by the end of May 2005. No significant changes are anticipated between the r evised Draft and Final version of the Program Bulletin. During both conferences, interested parties were provided an opportunity to ask the US and UK Government Managers, Scientists, and Business personnel questions specifically concerning the ITA Program. A list of the public questions and answers is availabl e at: http://www.usukita.com/QA/program_question_list.aspx. Answers to each question can be obtained by clicking on the question itself. The revised Draft Program Bulletin now requires potential Consortium Lead Industrial Partners to be prequalified by 01 July 2005. Prequalification requests must be completed through the ITA web site at http://www.usukita.com/program_prequal.aspx.