Dev Diary #34: Looking back on #NATOComms

Hello everyone!

Today we look back at our activity last week with members of the steering committee attending the NATO PDD hosted event: An Integrated Approach to NATO Communications. The inaugerial event was the parting gift of Assistent Secretary General Amb. Tacan Ildem, who has held this position from March 2016 till now, and is soon leaving his post after four years of excellent service. Ambassador Ildem has always been a great support for NATO Youth Engagement, and in his role as ASG a very approachable man with a keen ear for the needs of young proffesionals wanting to work with NATO on promoting transatlanticism. In short: Atlantic Forum and it's quick rise in the past months could arguably not have been done without him.

An Integrated Approach to NATO Communcations (which we shorted on twitter as #NATOComms) brought together a whole bunch of relevant NGOs, embassy personal and corporate players that together represent NATO's Community of Interest. It is our intent to, should this event be continued, Atlantic Forum can host a youth conference on the side, bringing in fresh ideas and suggestions.

Raluca, sadly was unable to join the event this time around due to obligations in Poland, however she did come up with a couple of excellent communcation approaches:
- NATOWoman; leading up to March 8 we will be spending extra energy and time on NATO's 1325 agenda
- Defender Europe 2020; combined with our upcoming event with USAREUR we will focus on promoting Defender Europe 2020, effectively taking away ammunition for trolls and malign agents (as we can redirect them to old posts, press releases, public lectures etc. etc.)
- NATO Education Month 2020; last year used as our launch runner up, we intend to make this an annual recurrence that eventually would spread beyond Atlantic Forum.

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