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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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Assaf Harofeh Medical Center becomes a healthcare leader with Trend security

Assaf Harofeh Medical Center, a leading Israeli hospital, faced growing cyber threats. Trend Micro's comprehensive security solutions protected its data and ensured business continuity, allowing it to focus on providing quality healthcare.

OVERVIEW

Assaf Harofeh Medical Center is the fourth largest university hospital in Israel and the center of the Shfela region, serving a population of about 1.5 million in the central and lowland areas. Employing a staff of approximately 3,400, the outpatient clinics, emergency room, hospital, and maternity ward are backed by dozens of departments, institutes, clinics, and laboratories in all sub-specialties.

Assaf Harofeh’s IT department serves the hospital as well as Shmuel Harofeh Hospital and the Abu Kabir Forensic Medicine Institute. The Medical Center’s five-member system and information security develops, maintains, upgrades, and integrates any technology purchased by the medical center, while investigating new technology as well as running an external emergency response team.

Their IT system consists of 500 servers, along with 2,600 workstations and two active-active servers that assist approximately 4,000 users.

CHALLENGES

As hospitals operate with a 100 percent policy of availability, computer systems as well as medical systems, should operate 24/7. The real challenge is creating an uncompromising operational continuum. In addition to operational continuity, Assaf Harofeh must ensure that their systems are interoperable with the various defense systems, comply with the regulations dictated by the Ministry of Health, and decide which systems they can integrate to help support the medical center’s vision and meet any challenges.

Assaf Harofeh deals with thousands of events a year and understand that in order to remain better protected, they must invest in the education of users alongside the technological solutions they implement.

Trend Micro gives the hospital maximum visibility of all the systems, applications, and environments, and of course, the hospital’s networks.

Tal Avitan

CTO at Assaf Harofeh Medical Center

WHY TREND

Assaf Harofeh chose to protect their systems with Trend Micro’s defense solutions due to the company’s unique technology offerings, powered by their knowledgeable team. Participating in the planning of the hospital, Trend Micro’s team eventually became just as familiar with the medical center’s systems as Assaf Harofeh’s IT specialists had become.

Assaf Harofeh was impressed with Trend Micro’s variety of solutions. This mix provides automation to save management resources, offer advanced reports, visibility for every endpoint, and the ability to detect problems at the highest level. Trend Micro provides Assaf Harofeh with a true robust next gen system, armed with machine learning to give their CTO peace of mind.

SOLUTION

Under the tutelage of Assaf Harofeh project manager, Guy Segev, the medical center was equipped with a variety of Trend Micro solutions. Starting with OfficeScan™ to protect endpoints using machine learning technology, Segev oversaw the inclusion of ScanMail™ for Microsoft® Exchange™ for email protection, Trend Micro™ Data Loss Prevention, Trend Micro™ Vulnerability Protection, Trend Micro™ Control Manager™ for centralized management, Trend Micro™ Deep Security™ for server protection, and Trend Micro™ Deep Discovery™ Analyzer.

RESULTS

Assaf Harofeh has reduced their operational cost in system maintenance significantly with the use of Deep Security. Upgrading to the latest version of the endpoint protection solution enables the medical center to benefit from machine learning and automation, improving reporting capabilities significantly, so even non-IT managers can understand these capabilities along with their significance within the ongoing operation of the medical center. “Trend Micro gives the hospital maximum visibility of all the systems, applications, and environments, and of course, the hospital’s networks”, said Tal Avitan.

As a result of our close partnership with Trend Micro, we have become leaders in the healthcare system. We are the first to hear about attacks, even before the cyber authority. I feel I have a lateral sector responsibility for part of my experience for the entire health sector in Israel.

Tal Avitan - CTO at Assaf Harofeh Medical Center

WHAT'S NEXT

With more than 60 years of service, Assaf Harofeh Medical Center plans to remain an important part of Israel’s health sector and healthcare security. “As a result of our close partnership with Trend Micro, we have become leaders in the healthcare system. We are the first to hear about attacks, even before the cyber authority. I feel I have a lateral sector responsibility for part of my experience for the entire health sector in Israel.” said Avitan.

Technologies

OfficeScan by Trend Micro Trend Micro™ Deep Security™ Trend Micro™Deep Discovery™

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