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Belgium 13-11-2026 Squad Only Physical English

Building the Business Case for New IT Capabilities; How to justify investment when value is strategic, shared, or only visible over time.

Many IT capabilities are essential and difficult to fund through a simple project ROI. The challenge is showing why architecture, governance, resilience, cybersecurity maturity, data foundations, and AI readiness deserve investment before the gap becomes expensive. Three pressure points make the case harder. - Shared value means the benefit often sits across several teams, while the budget sits in one place. - Timing creates friction because the cost is immediate while the value appears over time. - Risk translation is needed so business and finance leaders understand the consequence of delaying the investment. The working question is simple: how do we turn foundational IT capabilities into credible investment cases that link cost, risk, business value, and future flexibility? If you are building these cases internally, let’s compare how others are positioning value, risk, and timing.

Belgium 19-11-2026 All Members Physical English

Europe’s Digital Foundations

Public organisations are re-evaluating the digital foundations on which critical services depend. Cloud strategy is increasingly shaped by questions of operational control, legal exposure, supplier dependency, interoperability and long-term resilience. For public-sector leaders, the issue is not only where workloads are hosted, but how much strategic control remains over the technologies that support essential public services. This is where European cloud initiatives, sovereign infrastructure and open-source technologies become strategically important. Together, they can increase transparency, preserve portability and reduce dependency on individual providers. But they also raise practical questions around maturity, procurement, integration, support models and long-term sustainability. Open source brings a specific dimension to this discussion. It claims to better support transparency, interoperability and strategic autonomy, but it is also requiring clear governance, security controls and operational support. The opportunity is to understand where open technologies can strengthen the public-sector technology stack, where commercial platforms remain essential and how both can coexist within a coherent European digital strategy. Three questions shape the discussion: Which parts of the public-sector technology stack require stronger European control? What role should open-source technologies play in reducing dependency and strengthening transparency? Which governance and procurement decisions will determine whether a sovereign cloud strategy succeeds? Bringing these perspectives together can define where sovereign cloud and open technologies create strategic value, identify the decisions that deserve executive attention, and establish practical principles for strengthening Europe’s digital foundations while preserving flexibility and innovation. See you at the table?

Belgium 24-11-2026 Country Members Physical French

Les Rencontres: Innovation de l'Ombre

Créativité vs. Chaos : Quelle est la gouvernance minimale ? Le défi principal est d'équilibrer le risque et le rythme du changement. Les équipes métier adoptent de nouveaux outils d'IA et low-code de leur propre chef, créant une véritable créativité mais aussi un risque massif et non géré. Cette discussion se concentre sur l'établissement de voies simples et sûres pour l'innovation, en débattant de la gouvernance minimale qui protège la réputation de l'entreprise tout en évitant l'erreur d'écraser les initiatives utiles dans l'ombre. Questions clés d'Échange entre pairs : Où l'innovation de l'ombre aide-t-elle plutôt que de nuire, et comment éviter de l'écraser ? Quelle est la gouvernance minimale qui protège la réputation tout en maintenant la vitesse, et à qui appartient-elle réellement ? Comment les pairs ont-ils réussi à transformer les efforts initiaux de l'ombre en services officiels soutenus sans perdre la confiance de l'entreprise ? Comment pouvons-nous rendre plus facile d'innover de manière responsable que de simplement agir en franc-tireur ?

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Audi builds developer environment with Red Hat OpenShift

Audi AG, part of the Volkswagen (VW) Group, needed to create a stable, scalable environment for innovative development across cloud platforms. Audi decided to use Red Hat OpenShift, an enterprise Kubernetes platform, as the foundation of Kubika-O, its new security-focused runtime environment.

Benefits:

Reduced project time to market by up to six months
Created consistent, managed multi-tenant platform across cloud vendors
Enabling the benefits of cloud-native services and the benefits of DevSecOps across silos

Supporting innovation in an environment of constant change

Audi AG, part of the Volkswagen (VG) Group, is a manufacturer of high-quality automobiles. The company delivered more than 1.6 million cars to 100 countries worldwide in 2020.

To keep pace with evolving business demand and fulfill its mission of leading through technology, the VW Group tasked Audi’s IT team with creating a secure, stable, central environment for innovative development at scale across the group’s many brands. As part of this project, Audi IT sought to reduce risks and remove dependencies with a flexible, modular architecture that could support iterative work.

“The days of ‘plan, build, run’ are over,” said Sebastian Kister, Product Team LeadKubernetes Competence Center, Audi AG. “You can't expect a system to run as-is for ten years anymore. To survive in an environment of constant change, we needed a multi-tenant system with the ability to make small adjustments and updates whenever necessary.”

Adopting Kubernetes with a fully managed platform

Audi decided to work with Red Hat to create a new as-a-Service development environment, called Kubika-O, based on enterprise open source technology. The company chose Red Hat software because it met their strategic goals to take advantage of open source flexibility and scalability while avoiding vendor lock-in.

The software foundation of Kubika-O is Red Hat OpenShift, an enterprise Kubernetes platform for building, automating, scaling, and managing container-based applications. To integrate with its cloud provider, Audi uses Red Hat OpenShift Dedicated on AWS, a managed and supported solution offered natively on Amazon Web Services (AWS) for easier management and billing.

Delivering applications faster with stable, cross-cloud foundation

Reduced time to market

Previously, projects became backlogged due to time-consuming provisioning processes that could require lead times as long as six months. With automation through Red Hat OpenShift, Audi IT can quickly provide tailored Kubernetes clusters and add-ons for each Kubika-O project. As a result, experienced developers and those new to Kubernetes can work more efficiently to create, deliver, and migrate innovative solutions across on-premise and cloud environments.

Created multicloud foundation for innovative new services

Kubika-O supplies Audi’s platforms, applications, and projects with a consistent foundation. This multitenant Kubernetes environment supports several key operational applications, including Audi Open Source Diagnostics, Group Measurement Data Management, and its many internal development and management applications to drive the digital transformation of Audi Group. “Red Hat OpenShift helped us create a secure runtime for our projects and containers with low dependencies,” said Kister.

Improved responsiveness to meet demand

Audi’s teams can now use the modular, responsive container infrastructure and robust automation technology included in Red Hat OpenShift to scale applications using shared resources—without relying on physical infrastructure.

Technologies

Red Hat OpenShift

Partners

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