Defence Ministers of nearly 40 countries have confirmed their participation for the biennial defence exposition DefExpo2020 beginning in Lucknow from the 5th of February. The Ministers include are from Czech Republic, Mexico, South Korea, United Arab Emirates and 14 African countries. <br />'' <br />'' Briefing media in New Delhi yesterday, Defence Secretary Dr Ajay Kumar said, for the first time during DefExpo, India-Africa Defence Conclave will be held. He said, the number of companies registered for participating in DefExpo 2020 has increased to 1,000 from 702 in the last edition held in Chennai. <br />'' <br />'' Defence Secretary said that there was a huge 96 percent jump in the booked exhibition space by exhibitors in DefExpo 2020 to over 53 thousand square meters, compared to around 27 thousand during the last edition.<br />'' <br />'' Live demonstrations of the services, DPSUs and industry showing the land, naval, air and internal security systems will be in action.  The live demonstration will be held at two locations at the exhibition site and the other at the Gomati riverfront.<br />'' <br />'' Nineteen technical and business seminars are planned during the DefExpo20 and 15 of these would be organized by various Industry Chambers, including Confederation of Indian Industries, Ph.D. Combers of Commerce, The Associated Chambers of Commerce of India. Some of the seminar topics are futuristic and include discussions on artificial intelligence, robotics, Internet of Things (IoTs), drones and wired warrior.<br />'' <br />'' Dr Ajay Kumar said, a series of webinars have been going on since the 10th of last month. The topics of the webinars were of academic interest and relevance to the defence, aerospace and security industry, academia and student fraternity and were widely subscribed.<br />'' <br />'' Arrangements have been made for five thousand college students from various technical colleges of Uttar Pradesh for visiting during business days. This is being done to inculcate interest among them. Entry will be free for the general public on February 8th and 9th.<br />'' <br />'' There will be an Instagram photo competition during the business days of the exposition. The best-selected photographs by a jury shall fetch the participant's cash prizes of one lakh rupees. <br />'' <br />'' The second and third prize will be 75 thousand rupees and 50 thousand rupees. A mobile app (DEFEXPO 2020) was recently launched by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh that details among others schedule of Live Demo and other activities during the event real-time.<br />''