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Welcome to CIONET Belgium

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Upcoming Events

 
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Belgium 19-5-26 Invitation Only Physical english

AI vs AI in Cybersecurity: When defenders and attackers both use AI

The game has changed, clearly. Attackers have AI, defenders have AI, and both sides are learning faster than anyone expected, or maybe the attackers are just a bit faster. What used to take hours now happens in seconds, and detection windows close before alerts even appear. It’s adaptation beyond automation, and no one gets to sit still. But every promise of AI-driven defence comes with a price. The tools are expensive to train, maintain, and monitor. Mistakes cost more too. False positives drain teams, model drift hides real threats, and poisoned data turns protection into confusion. So now it’s not only about defending networks, it’s about defending the defenders themselves, from fatigue, blind trust, and automation gone wrong. So how do you keep visibility when both sides use the same weapons? How do you detect intent when patterns look human but aren’t? How do you justify cost when failure still happens, just faster? Let’s explore what happens when algorithms face each other on both sides of the firewall, and what new defences emerge when speed alone is no longer enough. A closed conversation about a future where cybersecurity becomes an AI vs AI battle, and humans still have to win.

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Belgium 21-5-26 All Members Physical english

Replace, Wrap, or Rebuild? : Core modernization in financial services and insurance, without a full rewrite.

For banks, insurers, and other financial services leaders, core modernization is rarely a simple technology decision. The harder question is what to replace, what to wrap, what to rebuild selectively, and what to leave alone. This round table brings together senior peers to discuss how they are making those choices under real constraints: resilience, control, regulatory scrutiny, delivery speed, vendor dependency, and the risk of getting sequencing wrong. The conversation will focus on practical judgment, where modernization creates value, where it adds risk, and how to move forward without triggering another multi-year transformation cycle. A small-group discussion for leaders looking for clear decisions, credible trade-offs, and peer perspective.  

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Belgium 22-5-26 Invitation Only Physical english

Managing Vendor Lock-In: Balancing dependence, cost, and control in strategic partnerships

Every vendor swears their platform is open, flexible, and built for freedom. Then comes the renewal date. The price goes up, migration looks painful, and “strategic partnership” starts to feel more like dependency. Most organisations don’t get trapped overnight, they walk into it one contract at a time. Broadcom, anyone? We know lock-in isn’t only technical, it’s commercial, architectural, and even cultural. Once tools shape how teams work, switching becomes not only costly but politically impossible. So how do you manage dependency without losing leverage? What do you do when moving away costs more than staying? How do you negotiate from a position of weakness? And what governance models help prevent lock-in before it happens? Let’s share how to keep options open, make vendors compete without breaking partnerships, and find leverage even when it seems there’s none left. A closed conversation for those who’ve learned that freedom in IT is rarely free.

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Upcoming TRIBE Events

 
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May 19, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Physical english

AI vs AI in Cybersecurity: When defenders and attackers both use AI

The game has changed, clearly. Attackers have AI, defenders have AI, and both sides are learning faster than anyone expected, or maybe the attackers are just a bit faster. What used to take hours now happens in seconds, and detection windows close before alerts even appear. It’s adaptation beyond automation, and no one gets to sit still.

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May 22, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Physical english

Managing Vendor Lock-In: Balancing dependence, cost, and control in strategic partnerships

Every vendor swears their platform is open, flexible, and built for freedom. Then comes the renewal date. The price goes up, migration looks painful, and “strategic partnership” starts to feel more like dependency. Most organisations don’t get trapped overnight, they walk into it one contract at a time. Broadcom, anyone?

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May 26, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Virtual english

The Career Path of the Cloud Engineer: From system builder to strategic enabler of digital scale

The cloud engineer’s world keeps expanding. It started with provisioning and automation, but now it touches everything: resilience, security, cost, and even business continuity. What used to be a back-end function has become one of the most visible roles in digital operations. Yet with that visibility comes pressure: constant evolution, constant firefighting, and very little time to step back and ask, “Where is this career actually going?”

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CIONET Partner Updates

CIONET Partner Updates

Recent Cases

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Finance Company Will Build Native Mobile Apps with Low-Code Platform

CA CF NL Consumer Finance Nederland B.V. is a financial company that needed to revamp its outdated core banking system. Initially, they intended to create only a few applications with the OutSystems platform. However, they quickly realized how easy it was to replace existing systems and build new applications.

CA CF NL - Build Native Mobile Apps

Legacy System Modernization Creates a Competitive Advantage

Challenge - CA CF NL is part of Crédit Agricole Consumer Finance, a leading player in the European consumer credit market. With an outstanding portfolio of over 2.3 billion euros, CA CF NL is one of the largest finance companies.

CA CF NL is committed to digital transformation and, as part of that, the company wanted to update its legacy banking applications.

“CA CF NL is basically an IT company with a banking license,” says Erwin Kooiman, senior manager IT, who leads a team of IT specialists covering functional and technical maintenance. After analysing the challenge he faced, Kooiman realized he was going to need some help. That’s when he started looking at the OutSystems low-code platform. 

 

"With OutSystems low-code development platform, we can build native mobile apps that will give us a huge competitive advantage and help us fulfil our goal of becoming a true digital financing partner."Erwin Kooiman, IT senior manager at Credit Agricole Consumer Finance (CA CF NL)

 

Low-code Platform an Ideal Integration Tool That Delivers Speed at Enterprise Scale

Solution - CA CF NL’s architects quickly concluded that OutSystems was the best option for them, recalls Kooiman. “In addition to being a good development platform, it fit well into our core systems, which made it ideal for integration.”

Kooiman adds, "Initially, we only wanted to develop a few non-critical systems ourselves but soon we decided to start developing mission-critical systems. We also bridged the gap between off-the-shelf solutions and tailored systems that make us unique.”

CA CF NL felt it was important to work closely with OutSystems and an integration partner on the legacy system modernization. "The core banking system and ESB are critical to our business, so the transition had to be done right in one go," Kooiman explains. "I was really pleased with the guidance we received, first from OutSystems in Portugal, and later from our Dutch implementation partner COOLProfs."

Another aspect of OutSystems that Kooiman and his team really liked is that it enables rapid interaction between developers as well as testers and users. That means that applications can be delivered and adapted quickly, increasing interaction with the business.

Applications built with OutSystems include:

  • Replacing interfaces and modules that were connected to the outdated core banking system.
  • Building an enterprise service bus (ESB) that would connect different platforms to the banking system.
  • Developing a product catalog application to manage CA CF NL’s financial products and reduce the complexity of maintaining products in the Core Bank environment.
  • Creating an application that allows customers to compare different financial offers and that functions as a contact platform between employees and clients. This took only 6 weeks to build and deploy.
  • Optimizing process flows and introducing process orchestration, allowing the core processes of the bank to become full STP (Straight Through Processing).

OutSystems Helps CA CF NL Become a Mobile Development Center of Excellence

Results - Kooiman and his team were pleasantly surprised by the ease and speed of building native mobile apps, and this led to the idea of becoming a Mobile Development Center of Excellence.
Kooiman couldn’t be happier with the way things are going. “Our IT team becomes a well-oiled machine running at full speed. With this new élan, we are convinced we will be able to maintain our position in the market and face the challenges of digitalization ahead.”

OutSystems enabled CA CF NL’s IT team to:

  • Build any kind of application they needed, fast and easy
  • Implement an agile development methodology
  • Rejuvenate the IT team and become a more attractive employer for young and savvy developers

Technologies

Outsystems

Partners

CIONET Circles

CIONET Business Circles

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Cyber Circle

CIONET’s Cyber Circle: a new three-event programme exclusively focusing on the most urgent, complex, and high-impact challenges in cybersecurity today. Launched in 2026, this initiative brings together CISOs, CIOs, and senior IT executives with a strong interest in cybersecurity for three curated gatherings each year. As part of CIONET’s trusted executive community, the Cyber Circle provides a confidential, peer-driven environment to exchange insights, share real-world experiences, and address evolving cyber threats. Each session is designed to foster strategic dialogue, strengthen resilience, and elevate cybersecurity as a core driver of business value.

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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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