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Kalman Tiboldi - CTO & Founder at GemOne-TVH - Simplify or Die: Why Complexity Is the Real IT Challenge
Belgium Sep 24, 2025 Invitation Only Physical english
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
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
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
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
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
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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Banco Santander Consumer Portugal Adopts the OutSystems Platform
Banco Santander Consumer Portugal selected OutSystems to power its ambitious digital transformation program in 2017. Working with OutSystems partner KPMG, the bank had replaced 70% of its core systems by the beginning of 2020. With a new agile IT architecture, the bank is now able to innovate at speed, to launch new channels and solutions.
“The OutSystems development approach has greatly contributed to the success of the program. It has improved our agile practices and helped us involve business users in a much more responsive way.” - Domingos FerreiraIT & Operations Director, Banco Santander Consumer Portugal
Banco Santander Consumer Portugal, part of Santander Group, a top-10 global financial services group, provides credit solutions to consumers both directly and via leading consumer goods and automotive partners. In Portugal, Santander Consumer financed loans totaling 465 million Euros in 2018.
Santander Consumer was struggling to adapt to a fast-changing market. Successive mergers and acquisitions had led to a complex IT architecture, which added cost and delays to every IT related improvement or innovation.
Santander Consumer faced increasing competition, and the bank's business strategy was to diversify and become a major player in the consumer loan and insurance markets.
The bank's leadership realized that it needed to escape the inertia imposed by its hard-to-change legacy IT, to speed-up the launch of new products, services, and digital experiences.
"Working with OutSystems and KPMG, we have built a new IT architecture, replaced 70% of our core systems, and streamlined our operations. We are now executing the business vision and delivering new digital channels and solutions to lead in the consumer finance market.” - Domingos FerreiraIT & Operations Director, Banco Santander Consumer Portugal
Speed-up development and improve agility
No lock-in, open standards-based platform
Powerful integrationIn 2016, Santander Consumer put together a company-wide task-force to digitally transform every aspect of the business, including products, processes, channels, compliance, and IT. KPMG were appointed to help deliver the transformation program between 2017 to 2019.
Following an extensive evaluation, OutSystems was selected as the low-code application development platform to refresh the bank’s technology. Key selection criteria included:
Santander Consumer’s Management was also impressed that the OutSystems team quickly grasped the full extent of the proposed wide-ranging transformation program.
The digital transformation required a new, agile IT architecture to replace many of Santander Consumer’s 20-year old systems. Fundamental to this was the creation of an enterprise service bus, a new business process management layer, and new channels for all product stakeholders. All of these were to be developed on the OutSystems platform.
The new architecture enables fast and flexible development and maximizes the reuse of code across multiple products and channels. The bank is now able to quickly digitalize processes and streamline operations so that it can launch new products and channels in a much more efficient way.
These improvements and innovations are transforming the way that the bank operates and engages with partners and customers.
The “NeXt Future” program includes 47 distinct initiatives and 14 new solutions, developed in three years by an internal team of around 20 people, from IT, operations, and various business departments, and up to 40 people from KPMG.
Many reusable components have already transitioned to the new architecture, including:
In late 2018, the first solutions went live for consumer credit and personal loans, which are high priority growth targets for Santander Consumer. Other solutions built with OutSystems that are already in production include:
Santander Consumer has also built a new portal for auto dealers that, at the time of writing, is about to go live. This comprehensive solution will significantly simplify and improve the onboarding experience for auto dealers and their customers by enabling document upload and real-time status updates throughout the process.
The bank is also about to launch new fully-integrated solutions for credit recovery and associated litigation.
KPMG is one of the world's leading professional services firms. We are proud of our firm's strong and established reputation, a reputation that is built on a long history of independence, integrity...
Learn more about KPMG Advisory - Consultores de Gestão, S.A.By the beginning of 2020, Santander had replaced 70% of the processes that were in its legacy core systems. As Domingos Ferreira, IT & Operations Director, puts it, “In just three years, we have replaced and improved a technology architecture that took us 20 years to develop.”
However, technology change is not, in itself, the end-goal. The real achievement is the new-found agility that allows the bank to quickly launch new propositions to market, with streamlined, digitally-optimized processes, and significantly improved customer experience.
Moreover, higher customer satisfaction scores confirm that improved customer experiences are making a difference.
“The OutSystems development approach has greatly contributed to the success of the program,” says Domingos. “It has improved our agile practices and helped us involve business users in a much more responsive way.”
Cultural change goes hand-in-hand with Santander Consumer’s digital transformation, as the bank adopts a more customer-centric, agile approach to develop and deliver the products and experiences its partners and users need.
In summary, here are just a few of the achievements delivered over the three-year program:
Kalman Tiboldi - CTO & Founder at GemOne-TVH - Simplify or Die: Why Complexity Is the Real IT Challenge
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Isabelle Droll - CIO for Airline, Corporate, Hotels & Resorts and Sustainability at TUI - Data, Diversity, and Destinations
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Sharon Prior - CIO in transition - How Great Tech Leadership Begins with Business Thinking
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José Antonio López, Group CIO at TOUS - Jewels, Data & AI: Inside the Digital Transformation of TOUS
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Tom Tanghe - General Manager ITC EMEA at Daikin Europe - Reinventing the CIO Role
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CIOFEST 2025 - From Order Taker to Proactive Disruptor
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.
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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