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CIONET - What's next

Connecting ambitious digital leaders and businesses around the globe.

Catch up on the upcoming CIONET Events

             
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Belgium Sep 24, 2025 Invitation Only Physical english

Bridging the Unbridgeable: IT Meets M(i)OT ; Converged infrastructures demand converged security

As smart devices proliferate across operational environments — from sensors on factory lines and GPS trackers in logistics fleets to wearables in healthcare and connected systems in smart cities — the integration of Managed IoT (MiOT) is accelerating. But with it comes a surge in cybersecurity risks. No longer isolated or air-gapped, OT systems are becoming fully networked, remotely accessible, and deeply entwined with IT. This creates a vulnerable, highly complex digital mesh, one where a single compromised device can trigger physical, financial, and reputational consequences.

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UK Sep 24, 2025 Country Members Physical english

CIONET UK Business Community Program: Creating agile partnerships – making the right choice between in and out-sourcing

Join us for our community event on 24th September in London. Join us for our community event on 21st May in London. Sponsored by Business Partners Cognizant, Orange Business, Entelect, Strategy, Stefanini & Thoughtworks.

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Belgium Sep 25, 2025 Invitation Only Physical english

The power of Hybrid - Cloud-Native Application Modernisation as a No-Regret Move

On 25th September, during the Red Hat Summit: Connect 2025 in Brussels, CIONET is hosting an exclusive, invitation-only round table for leading CIOs, CTOs, and digital leaders. While the Summit offers a broad programme, this CIONET session is a separate, distinct event, conducted in its own dedicated room with private catering, ensuring a focused and confidential peer-to-peer discussion. This round table will delve into why certain cloud-native techniques offer undeniable benefits, irrespective of where your applications are deployed, be it on-premise, in a hyperscale cloud, or a hybrid environment. Even outside public clouds, these modern, modular architectures consistently deliver increased agility, enhanced scalability, and quicker time-to-market. The real power behind these advantages lies in automation. When done properly, automation significantly boosts team efficiency, improves system quality, and drastically cuts risks from slow systems or downtime. However, achieving truly effective automation comes with its own set of challenges, which we'll address head-on. Key Discussion Points Include: "No-Regret" Cloud-Native Pillars: We'll try to pinpoint essential techniques every organisation should adopt, such as microservices architecture, containerisation (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes), API-first design, stateless application design, and immutable infrastructure. Why are these crucial for modern applications, no matter the deployment location? Strategic Vendor Lock-in: How to judiciously manage vendor lock-in. For new innovations and applications with a relatively short life expectancy, leveraging the latest unique features of a hyperscale cloud might be beneficial. For long-lived applications (expected to be live for decades), the focus might shift to limiting exposure by utilising generally available technologies. Automation Anywhere: How can organisations effectively implement automation strategies to unlock the full potential of cloud-native initiatives across diverse infrastructures? What are the biggest hurdles, and how are leaders overcoming them? This CIONET round table offers a unique and intimate setting for digital leaders to gain critical insights, exchange perspectives, and shape the strategic path towards application modernisation that truly offers no regrets.

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Belgium Sep 25, 2025 Invitation Only Physical english

Women of CIONET - Female Leadership Circle 2

As AI shapes our future, the time is now to address and correct its inherent biases. Join leading female voices in tech as we explore how to undo past mistakes, champion neutrality, and feed AI systems with inclusive, unbiased data. This conference is a call to action for female leaders in AI and tech to ensure the next generation of intelligent systems reflects fairness, diversity, and equity. Together, let’s set things right and redefine the future of AI.

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Poland Sep 25, 2025 All Members Physical Polish

COMMUNITY EVENT #7: HUMAN MACHINE

Agenci AI to przyszłość, która wyniesie organizacje na inny poziom dostarczania wartości biznesowej. Już teraz wiadomo, że nowa generacja inteligentnych agentów zmienia sposób, w jaki firmy działają, podejmują decyzje i się rozwijają. Podczas siódmego Community Eventu wraz z ekspertami AI sprawdzimy: możliwości, które dają agenci; jak wprowadzić governance i umiejscowić w organizacji tysiące sztucznych pracowników; jak zapewnić bezpieczeństwo, gdy każdy z agentów może wykonywać inne operacje; jaki jest wpływ wykorzystania agentów na koszty i środowisko; jak zmienia się pozycja firmy na rynku. Omówimy, jak liderzy IT i cyfrowi mogą i muszą strategicznie dostosować się do tej nowej rzeczywistości. Zarejestruj się już teraz i zapewnij sobie miejsce!

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Italy Sep 25, 2025 Invitation Only Physical italian

Innovation in Balance: governing the power of data and automation

Nel percorso verso l’AI e la trasformazione digitale, dati e automazione sono gli elementi centrali di ogni strategia tecnologica. Ma senza una governance chiara, rischiano di diventare non solo fonte di inefficienza, ma anche di rischi e incoerenza.   Come garantire che i dati siano completi, accessibili e affidabili? Come automatizzare le operation IT e i processi aziendali mantenendo controllo, compliance e sicurezza?   Durante questa roundtable esclusiva, organizzata da CIONET Italia e IBM, affronteremo:   La governance come abilitatore di dati affidabili e automazione sicura. Come prepararsi a un’adozione dell’AI realmente scalabile. Il ruolo di controllo, resilienza e gestione del rischio nell’innovazione.

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Recent Cases

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Athénée Royal La Roche: Creating a more immersive learning experience for students

Athénée Royal La Roche-en-Ardenne may be a small rural school in southern Belgium, but its innovative approach to technology and education rivals that of even the largest institutes across the country. A forward-looking approach to pedagogy that has helped equip students with the digital skills they will need in the future

“These devices are changing the face of education across our school.”

Frédérique Diependaele, principal at Belgian secondary school Athénée Royal La Roche-en-Ardenne, is talking about her school’s recent transition to a 1:1 learning model where every student is given a device to enhance their learning experience.

“Our students can come from many different social backgrounds, much like any school in the Wallonia-Brussels Education (WBE) school network,” she says. “By giving every student their own device, our goal was to breathe fresh air into their education and offer everyone across the school the same opportunities for digital learning.”

The school had already implemented an internal Wi-Fi network in 2018, putting it ahead of many schools in the Wallonia region who often have poor internet connectivity. Now with a more stable network in place, a pilot project was put in motion in 2020 to see how students would react to each receiving their own device.

“Fluid learning has always been very important to me,” says Diependaele, “and bringing these devices into the classroom was more than just giving students another tool to use – it was a pedagogical channel that could bridge learning a subject between the teacher and the student.

“If the project was a success for a small school like ours, it would show how any school in Belgium could do the same and transformation education across our country.”

Modernizing a traditional learning system

Situated in the southeastern region of Ardennes, Belgium, Athénée Royal La Roche-en-Ardenne is a small rural school that has always valued innovation and saw switching to a 1:1 learning model as its next step in enhancing the education experience for every student.

“We had already chosen Microsoft 365 to be our core platform for learning and communication across the school,” explains Jean-Christophe Dron, project coordinator and geography teacher at Athénée Royal La Roche-en-Ardenne. “Now to get our pilot project right, we needed a device that would integrate well with our existing infrastructure and decided that a Windows-ready tablet was our best option.”

The school was keen to be very hands on for its pilot project and chose one of Dron’s geography classes to test its 1:1 approach in March 2020. “We went through the Microsoft platform step-by-step to understand how to make Windows 10 meet our needs and what applications were available,” he says.

“How virtual maps could replace a traditional geography atlas to reduce paper textbooks, or how we could remove the need for print-outs by sharing content on screen. We quickly saw a change of mindset towards education from the students, which was great not just for our learning model, but for other teachers and principals to see across the country.

“Then COVID was at our door and we had to put the project on hold until May 2020, when we needed more devices to help facilitate remote learning for the whole school. That’s when we made a switch to the Surface range.”

Investing in the future of every student

Athénée Royal La Roche-en-Ardenne had previously explored and tested a range of devices for its students back in 2019 and saw value in Microsoft Surface Go 2 for its range of pedagogy features and synergy with Microsoft 365.

With its 1:1 pilot project proving a success and COVID-19 social distancing restrictions now coming into place, the school needed to rapidly deploy over 400 Surface Go 2 devices to facilitate remote learning. A device management challenge that was simpler than expected for Matthieu Delvaux, IT coordinator and teacher at Athénée Royal La Roche-en-Ardenne.

“I used to work at a small company alongside three other people to manage a similar number of devices to what we have at the school now,” he says. “With Microsoft Intune and Autopilot, I didn’t need a team to support me as these tools make it really quick and easy to set-up each Surface device and manage them from my own workstation.”

To help onboard teachers and staff, the school created a selection of learning path courses that explored how to use the Surface devices and different applications that could enhance learning in the classroom. “The courses took a lot of time to create,” says Delvaux. “But we quickly needed our colleagues to start using these devices, and providing this kind of content was a great way to help them see what’s possible with the technology.”

“The Surface Go 2 was a device and learning solution that worked hand-in-hand together,” adds Diependaele. “It gave students the perfect interface for pedagogy content and a number of ways they could communicate with teachers and other classmates from home. The platform also offers great inclusivity options such as Immersive Reader, which are very important for the students to make everything available and accessible at any time through the device.”

A success for digital schooling

Now as Athénée Royal La Roche-en-Ardenne enters 2022, many pedagogically basic practices have been recreated through the Surface Go 2 devices to enhance the digital experience of the entire school.

“Surface is being used every hour of every day,” explains Diependaele. “For instance, 90% of courses are now managed through OneNote Class Notebook in Teams, enabling teachers to push relevant content to students or colleagues and have that information available to access through a Surface device.

Dron adds, “my geography class was recently discussing natural catastrophes across the world and I asked each student to create a short visual story using their device. Everyone then published what they’d created on Flipgrid so we could watch them all together on the whiteboard.

“We also used virtual reality glasses so the students could experience a real natural catastrophe situation, which was really amazing and just some of the ways were now able to make learning much more immersive.”

Adopting these devices has also offered the school more accessibility tools that is allowing it to help support diverse learners – a big step for inclusion that is very important to Diependaele. “Having more inclusion for students with disabilities is a big change for Belgian schools, and the digital tools that Microsoft and these Surface devices offer have been a game changer,” she says.

“Things like using a touch screen instead of a pen or Immersive Reader to help understand a subject are making the learning experience equal for everyone. And as each student has their own device that they can take home, there is a sense of autonomy where you can choose to use the tools that make life easier for you – not the ones that the teacher tells you to use.”

Preparing students for their next step

As Athénée Royal La Roche-en-Ardenne now looks back over its transition to a 1:1 learning model, the school’s fresh pedagogy approach has become a leading example in digital education for schools in the WBE school network to follow.

“Over the last two years we’ve seen a big evolution in how these devices are being used, which is a real pillar of success for this project,” says Delvaux.

“From a content perspective like how my informatics class can now study C++, Python and many languages in a way that was never possible with the classical pedagogy. But also how having a digital presence in each classroom has changed the students’ mindset and opened new ways we can offer deeper learning experiences.”

“Our students can now learn the 21st century skills that are a necessary part of life nowadays in any profession,” Diependaele says in summary.

“In the past you only learnt digital skills if they were part of your subject. Now it's a totally different experience as we’re relating these skills to everyday life – and that’s going to be important in shaping the future for these kids.”

Checkout our CIONET COOKBOOK

cookbook

Embark on a culinary journey through the ever-evolving world of digital leadership with our third edition of the CIONET Cookbook: Recipes for Digital Success. Unveiling the intricate trilemma faced by today’s Master Chefs, our trailblazing European CIOs address a challenge at the nexus of customer interests, digital transformation strategies, and IT modernisation. Their secret? Synchronising the gearing between customer, business, and technology to create a frictionless movement through the digital landscape.

The CIONET Cookbook uses the analogy of a five-star restaurant to explain the importance of optimally integrated technology, with the CIO as Master Chef. In order to provide the best service to its customers, a top restaurant must have the right atmosphere, an inviting menu, a well-equipped kitchen, talented and committed front-of-house and kitchen staff and smooth-running processes that ensure an enjoyable experience for diners.

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CIOFEST 2025 - From Order Taker to Proactive Disruptor

CIONET Reports

 
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A research proposal_AI and the Human Experience

As AI transitions from a specialised tool to an all-pervasive force, understanding its profound implications for our human lives is no longer merely academic but an urgent imperative for social well-being and strategic preparedness.

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Cybersecurity in critical infrastructure

Geopolitical tensions have dominated the headlines for over two years now. In this context, the cyber threat landscape is also evolving rapidly. The protection and security of critical infrastructure – both physical and digital – is becoming increasingly important.

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HDS - From Hype to Reality Navigating the Challenges of GenAI

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Anna Kopp

Head of IT Germany and Regional Office Lead Munich, Microsoft

“The CIONET App allows us to learn from eachother and and find the courage to be authentic by hearing stories from others! Thanks to Tobias and the whole team for bringing us together:-) ”
Mauricio Amaro

Mauricio Amaro

IT Director, IT Thinker

“The main things that I would like to get from our community of Digital Leaders are: networking, share experiences, share best practices and successful cases, and comments and recommendations about providers.”
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Vijay Anand

Vice president IT & Compliance, VisionaryRCM (A Carlyle Grp Company)

“The CIONET app provides a really cool platform to network and share insights.”

About CIONET

CIONET’s mission is to help IT executives become more at ease and above all more successful in their jobs. So they can do more than just keep up with change but ultimately define it. CIONET opens up a whole new universe of opportunities in IT management.

With the largest membership of corporate digital leaders across Europe, Latin America, US and Australia, CIONET has the expertise and pioneering vision to solve or address any IT management challenge.

Why join CIONET?

From our local and global events, from our publications and research to our executive education programmes, everything we do is aimed at making sure digital leaders maximise their potential.

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with digital leaders who share your interests, who face the same challenges, who care about the same topics.

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stories, experiences, and ideas around our shared mission.

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inspiration, thought-provoking conversations, expert perspectives and exclusive first-hand content each and every day

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