The Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to serving military, government, academia and private industry. The association’s name centers on communications and electronics but under this broad umbrella are many varied disciplines and professional fields represented.
One such field is information systems technology. The April 2012 issue of SIGNAL, AFCEA’s monthly news magazine takes a closer look at geospatial information systems and their impact on today’s intelligence gathering efforts. While the articles in the current issue focus on the use of GIS for military intelligence gathering, they are useful for GIS users in all GIS communities. Developments, technologies and trends that begin at a national level often morph into public oriented applications that benefit downstream users. You can read the current issue of SIGNAL online and discover the other free tools AFCEA offers of their we site like their blog and e-newsletter.
Membership in AFCEA was once the privilege only of members of the military. Today, anyone with an interest in technology can join and take advantage of benefits like networking opportunities, educational discounts and product discounts through Dell and HP.
I have been a member of AFCEA for over four years now and consider it a top notch professional organization. Check it out and let me know what you think.