The role of emerging technologies in the modern battlefield would be top on the agenda of a national conference on use of IT in defence, beginning here from December 2.

The two-day 'National Conference on IT in Defence', organised by Computer Society of India and Defence Research and Development Organisation, is likely to be participated by 250 delegates representing the three defence forces, DRDO and IT sector.

The event is being organised at a time when advent of technological advancements has seen the war scenario change phenomenally over the past decade, dramatically reducing the reaction time.

"The effort of gathering data from across the three armed forces, processing and analysing it, taking decisions and communicating them back to the ground level forces has reduced to near real time," C R Chakravarthy, one of the organisers, said.

The scenario has also changed in terms of internal security. With the growing trend of proxy wars, terrorism and cyber wars, it has become extremely important for defence to address both internal and external threats, he said.

The conference would also discuss issues like technology enablers that will reduce time to react on the battlefield and newer technologies which help in moving up network centric operations to subsequent higher levels.

Issues like how the presence of mobile devices could be used to military advantage, inherent risks and threats of changing technologies and ways of mitigating these risks would also be taken up.