The Honorable Alan R. Shaffer, Deputy USD (A&S) opened the 2019 Symposium with a keynote address in which he stressed the need for acquisition professionals to become more knowledgeable and innovative in data management, artificial intelligence, intellectual property, and agile methods so as to counter the growing capabilities of our potential adversaries.  He also steered the audience in the direction of becoming very familiar with the National Defense Strategy (NDS) and its chief tenets:  Increase Lethality, Strengthen Alliances, and Reform the DoD.  Overall, the goal is to "go faster" - with speed of relevance - on implementing the NDS and DoD System Acquisition.