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Welcome to CIONET Belgium

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Upcoming Events

 
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Belgium 28-8-25 Country Members Physical english

20 Years CIONET - CIONET Belgium: Summer Festival

A special celebration marking 20 years of CIONET—two decades of empowering digital leaders and driving innovation in the technology landscape. This exclusive event will bring together our members to reflect on the incredible journey we've shared and look ahead to the future of digital leadership.Featuring keynote presentations from visionary CIOs, industry pioneers, and founding members, we’ll explore how far we’ve come and what lies ahead in the ever-evolving world of technology. Together, we will honour the contributions of our members who have shaped CIONET’s legacy while offering insights into how the community will continue to lead in the years to come.This is more than a celebration—it’s an opportunity to reconnect, reflect, and recharge with your fellow digital leaders. Don't miss this exclusive experience packed with inspiring talks, networking opportunities, and special recognitions that highlight the best of CIONET’s history and future.Let’s celebrate the past, present, and future of the digital community you helped build.

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Belgium 28-8-25 Country Members Physical english

Summer Festival - Advisory Board

A special celebration marking 20 years of CIONET—two decades of empowering digital leaders and driving innovation in the technology landscape. This exclusive event will bring together our members to reflect on the incredible journey we've shared and look ahead to the future of digital leadership. Featuring keynote presentations from visionary CIOs, industry pioneers, and founding members, we’ll explore how far we’ve come and what lies ahead in the ever-evolving world of technology. Together, we will honour the contributions of our members who have shaped CIONET’s legacy while offering insights into how the community will continue to lead in the years to come.

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Belgium 2-9-25 All TRIBERS Virtual english

What Does It Cost to Host an App? ; A practical guide to calculating hosting costs across infra, licenses, and operations

You’ve been asked a simple question: “What does it cost to host this application?” But the answer is anything but simple. The platform sits across multiple data centres. The app spans a few VMs, shares a backup system, uses licensed monitoring, and touches five different teams. Your CMDB should help, but it’s rigid, outdated, or incomplete. And yet, you still need to provide a number, clear, explainable, and grounded in reality.

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Upcoming TRIBE Events

 
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August 5, 2025 Squad Session Invitation Only Virtual polish

AI Act – praktyka stosowania na rynku polskim

AI Act – dyrektywa unijna regulująca wiele zasad wykorzystania AI w modelach biznesowych- już obowiązuje na polskim rynki. Ciekawe są prawdziwe i realne przypadki jej stosowania. Spójrzmy na temat od strony regulacyjnej, czyli prawnej. Ale zobaczmy praktykę aktywnej w temacie kancelarii prawnej. Zaprosiliśmy mecenaskę Aleksandrę Maciejewicz z kancelarii Lawmore, która od dłuższego czasu jest niezwykle aktywna i praktykuje w tym temacie. Poznamy podstawę prawną, praktyczne case’y i opis sytuacji oczami prawdziwego praktyka.

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August 6, 2025 Squad Session Invitation Only Virtual polish

DORA: wszystko, co chcielibyście wiedzieć, a baliście się zapytać

Michał Kulesza, adwokat, partner w departamencie technologicznym kancelarii Rymarz Zdort Maruta i szef zespołu regulacji ICT, przeprowadzi nas przez kluczowe wątki rozporządzenia i zmierzy się z pytaniami zgłoszonymi przez uczestników. Omówimy zarówno krytyczne aspekty na początku wdrożeń, jak i dostrajanie zmian na poziomie organizacyjnym i strategicznym. Masz konkretny temat, który warto poruszyć? Zgłoś go w trakcie rejestracji. Zamiast czytać między wierszami DORA – porozmawiajmy o tym wprost.

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August 7, 2025 Squad Session Invitation Only Virtual polish

Automated Systems Testing

Duże tempo developmentu i dokonywanych zmian wymaga nowej klasy testowania. Jakość systemów obserwowana na produkcji będzie pochodną skuteczności tego procesu. Duże nadzieje wiążemy z platformami wspierającymi testowanie i opartymi na AI. Sesja ta pokaże, gdzie jesteśmy w poszukiwaniu takich rozwiązań i gdzie ewaluuje myślenie szefów testów i ich rozwiązania organizacyjne.

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CIONET Partner Updates

CIONET Partner Updates

Recent Cases

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World Bank invests in greater efficiency and security with Microsoft Azure Arc

The World Bank’s IT and Information Security Office teams were using a duplicative decentralized solution for network monitoring and management. Recognizing an opportunity to improve efficiency and reduce costs, World Bank replaced their existing technology stack with a new solution based on Azure Arc.

Access to basic financial services is essential to building economies and lifting individuals out of devastating poverty. Yet, these life-changing offerings are not available in developing countries where they are needed most. The World Bank is working tirelessly to end extreme poverty and boost prosperity on a livable planet. To achieve its mission, the organization offers lending services in developing countries around the world.

The World Bank is among the world’s largest sources of funding and financial knowledge for 189 developing countries. It employs a diverse workforce representing more than 170 countries in more than 130 locations. The World Bank IT team was using multiple cloud providers and tools to manage the complex backend of the global institution.

“It was completely non-centralized. There were three, four different tools and places to go to monitor things. Even the security office was using different software to monitor security risks for all our servers,” recalls Chandra Kala Macha, Information Officer II, World Bank.

Multiple issues, one solution: Azure Arc

Both the IT and Information Security Office teams began forming a technology punch list to improve efficiency and reduce costs. At the top of the list: a cloud-based solution that would offer centralized monitoring, performance, resource consumption, and security management, all in a single package. This would enable them to deprecate duplicate licenses, reduce operating costs, and centralize data storage. That was particularly important, as the IT and Information Security Office have a constant need to share information.

The ideal solution would also enable World Bank employees to better manage their inventory of data workloads and perform maintenance tasks such as backups and patches more efficiently. The teams also sought a solution that would enable them to better assess the database environment using features such as cloud security assessment. Also on the list: a way to extract insights on migration readiness. The solution: Microsoft Azure Arc.

“We came across Azure Arc last year because initially our server team started this project. They wanted to work on the SQL Server infrastructure, and we knew that was a capability of Azure Arc,” Kala Macha recalls, adding that her team wanted to leverage it for SQL Server instances. With approvals from both management and the Information Security Office, the team selected a solution that included Microsoft Azure Arc, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Azure Monitor, and Microsoft Purview. 

Compatibility played a big role in the decision making process. World Bank wanted a solution that could be used to manage both Azure and AWS servers, but that would also work with its Microsoft SQL Server stack. Today, Azure Arc is the only native manageability solution available for Microsoft SQL Server, giving it an advantage over the competition. Most importantly, it could manage both World Bank clouds.

“We wanted to implement Azure Arc so we could utilize all the features and manage all our on-premises and cloud servers, including the AWS ones, from one location,” Kala Macha explains. “With Azure Arc, we can manage everything at the operating level and on the SQL Server side as well—all from a single pane of glass. It’s made a huge difference in our efficiency.”

Another point in its favor: the Information Security Office team was already using the technology. As a financial institution, World Bank deals with extremely sensitive data—which presents an attractive target for attackers. Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides comprehensive hybrid and multicloud security required to help protect the organization’s compute resources and data workloads. The team uses Azure Monitor to gauge performance trends and identify potential anomalies. The solution has proven extremely beneficial across the company, Kala Macha says. 

The World Bank team utilized Azure Arc to streamline its cloud migration journey, leveraging the tool to meticulously assess the on-premises environment and gain a comprehensive understanding of dependencies, resource utilization, and migration scale. That analysis facilitated the imposition of governance and compliance requirements seamlessly across all environments.

“By employing best practices assessment reports, we delved into both on-premises and multi-cloud resources, pinpointing configuration issues, security vulnerabilities, and operational best practice violations,” Kala Macha says. “These reports served as invaluable guides, offering clarity on potential problems and improvement areas prior to migration. The reports spotlighted security gaps and non-compliance issues, enabling us to resolve these challenges preemptively or during the migration process.”

The reports also provided key insights into performance optimization, identifying configuration settings that would benefit from refinement, Kala Macha adds. “Addressing these findings ensured our on-premises resources were meticulously prepared for migration to Azure, guaranteeing a smoother and highly successful migration experience.”

Greater efficiency, greater insights, greater good

As of 2023, World Bank had connected about 25 percent of its SQL Server estate to Azure Arc. They plan to triple the instance count in 2024 based on initial results. Today, performance, insights, security, and compliance all can be managed in a single, centralized tool. All monitoring can be done in one location, making it simpler for teams to manage issues and requirements around vulnerabilities. 

There have also been some unexpected efficiencies, Kala Macha notes. “For example, before Azure Arc, utilizing the on-premises SQL infrastructure required multiple teams to be aligned and coordinated, she says. “It took a lot of time, communication, and security clearances. Azure Arc has alleviated that bottleneck.”

Moving to Azure Arc has also had some notable financial benefits. For example, the IT team was using decentralized tools that were not capable of monitoring the entire SQL infrastructure (both on-premises and cloud). Plus, the team was only able to use the licensed tools on a few on-premises servers. For the same cost, World Bank can now enable Azure Arc on more than 300 SQL servers—10 times more than the previously licensed tools—to monitor performance, security compliance, and more. (A cost savings of 90 percent.)

The World Bank teams have also adapted Azure Arc and Microsoft Defender for Cloud throughout the company—not just in IT. “All our teams are using Azure Arc. It’s the common language for us now,” Kala Macha says. And that’s just the beginning. Today, World Bank and Microsoft are working together on additional functional elements to improve optimization of the Azure Arc platform. “We’ve already seen how Azure Arc can make us more efficient and reduce our operating costs. Now, we want to see how we can do more and save more,” Kala Macha says. “Because every dollar saved on the operation side is one more dollar that can go towards eradicating poverty.”

 

Partners

CIONET Circles

CIONET Business Circles

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Healthcare Circle

Digital Transformation is redefining the future of health care and health delivery. All stakeholders are convinced that these innovations will create value for patients, healthcare practitioners, hospitals, and governments along the patient pathway. The benefits are starting from prevention and awareness to diagnosis, treatment, short- and long-term follow-up, and ultimately survival. But how do you make sure that your working towards an architecturally sound, secure and interoperable health IT ecosystem for your hospital and avoid implementing a hodgepodge of spot solutions? How does your IT department work together with the other stakeholders, such as the doctors and other healthcare practitioners, Life Sciences companies, Tech companies, regulators and your internal governance and administrative bodies?

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Telenet Business Leadership Circle

The Telenet Business Leadership Circle powered by CIONET, offers a platform where IT executives and thought leaders can meet to inspire each other and share best practices. We want to be a facilitator who helps you optimise the performance of your IT function and your business by embracing the endless opportunities that digital change brings.

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Les Rencontres

Découvrez la dynamique du leadership numérique aux Rencontres de CIONET, le programme francophone exclusif de CIONET pour les leaders numériques en Belgique, rendu possible grâce au soutien et à l'engagement de nos partenaires de programme : Deloitte, Denodo et Red Hat. Rejoignez trois événements inspirants par an à Liège, Namur et en Brabant Wallon, où des CIOs et des experts numériques francophones de premier plan partagent leurs perspectives et expériences sur des thèmes d'affaires et de IT actuels. Laissez-vous inspirer et apprenez des meilleurs du secteur lors de sessions captivantes conçues spécialement pour soutenir et enrichir votre rôle en tant que CIO pair. Ne manquez pas cette opportunité de faire partie d'un réseau exceptionnel d'innovateurs numériques !

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Female Leadership Circle

CIONET is committed to highlighting and celebrating female role models in IT, Tech & Digital, creating a leadership programme that empowers and elevates women within the tech industry. This initiative is dedicated to showcasing the achievements and successes of leading women, fostering an environment where female role models are recognised, and their contributions can ignite progress and inspire the next generation of women in IT. Our mission is to shine the spotlight a little brighter on female role models in IT, Tech & Digital, and to empower each other through this inner network community.

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Check out our latest news

Testimonials

Geert Goethals
Geert Goethals
CIO
Sibelga
Bahadir Samli
Bahadir Samli
CIO
ING Belgique
2-Feb-29-2024-11-35-00-9309-AM
Bart Kerkhofs
Vice President & Head of IT
Bridgestone EMIA
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Michał Paprocki
Group CIO
Euroclear
1-Feb-29-2024-11-34-59-8990-AM
Manfred Boudreaux-Dehmer
Chief Information Officer
NATO
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Annick Faes
Vice President IT and CIO Medical Devices EMEA
Johnson & Johnson
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Piet De Ceuleners
Global IT Director
Melexis
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Dirk De Bevere
Large Enterprise Sales Leader
Telenet Business
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Stef Schampaert
Country Managing Director BeLux
Red Hat
CIONET Belgium - Advisory Board Member - Geert Lejon
Geert Lejon
Vice President Head of Belux / Head of Comms Benelux
Cognizant
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Kevin Ledegen
Group IT director
SDWorx
Gunter-Van-Craen_Small
Gunter Van Craen
Chief Digital & Information Officer
Bekaert
Thomas Kessler
Thomas Kessler
Partner | CIO Programme Leader
Deloitte
Emmanuel Gob
Emmanuel Gob
CIO
DPD
pascal pauwels
Pascal Pauwels
CIO
Colruyt
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Koen Segers
Managing Director Belgium and Luxembourg
Dell Technologies
benoit dewaele
Benoît Dewaele
Group IT Directo
Vandemoortele
Dirk Deridder-1
Dirk Deridder
CTO - Technology Services & Practices
SMALS
Thierry Driesens
Thierry Driesens
CIO
TVH
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Koen Vandaele
CIO
Delen Private Bank
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Liesbet D'hoker
Managing Director
Kyndryl BeLux
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Steven Vermeulen
CIO
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Jack Hamande
Jack Hamande
Director General Digital Transformation
Federale Overheidsdienst Beleid en Ondersteuning
Tom Tomczak
Tom Tomczak
Chief Commercial Officer (CCO)
NRB
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Cassandre Laurent
Directeur général
Agence du Numérique
an swalens
An Swalens
Head Of IT (CIO)
National Bank of Belgium
Untitled design (2)-Apr-01-2022-10-58-34-68-AM
Elke Laeremans
Chief Digital & Supply Chain Officer at Casa International
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Peter Sany
Peter Sany
Executive Advisor
Zoom
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Steven De Haes
Dean
Antwerp Management School
Marleen Thorré
Marleen Thorré
Head of Digital EMEA
Mitsubishi Chemical Group
christel-plessers
Christel Plessers
Head of IT European Markets
Mercedes-Benz Europe

Team

Luc Hendrikx
Luc Hendrikx
CEO
Inès De Bien
Inès De Bien
Partner - CCO
1-Feb-08-2022-10-22-08-68-AM
Daniel Eycken
Partner - COO
Hendrik Deckers
Hendrik Deckers
Founder - MD
Untitled design (1)-2
Jelte Scheys
Tribes Sales Director Belgium
foto Herman
Herman Roelandts
Tribe Master
Joseph Antoun
Joseph Antoun
Senior Program Director
1-Dec-16-2021-02-15-57-02-PM
Eman De Sutter
Program Manager
4-Feb-08-2022-10-22-09-03-AM
Shelly Deracourt
Program Manager
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Charlotte Coen
Partner Success Manager
Untitled design (1)-Nov-22-2023-08-56-42-6802-AM
Ivana Bradvica
Junior Event Manager
ML B-W-1
Martine Lefevre
Financial Controller
Vlera Berishaa (1)
Vlera Berisha
Junior Community Manager
Phaedra Vanhaeren
Phaedra Vanhaeren
Programme & Event Manager

Contact us

Would you like to know more about CIONET Belgium, membership or partnership opportunities? Do you have feedback or any other question? Send us a message!