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Welcome to CIONET Belgium

Realise your ambition! Connect with your local community of digital leaders.

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Upcoming Events

 
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Belgium 25-9-25 Invitation Only Physical english

Women of CIONET - Female Leadership Circle 2

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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Belgium 25-9-25 Invitation Only Physical english

Red Hat Round Table: THE POWER OF HYBRID

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 30-9-25 Squad Only Virtual english

Technical Debt: When to Pay It and When to Walk Away ; Making smart trade-offs between progress, maintenance, and risk

Everyone has technical debt. The question is what to do with it. Refactor now? Wait for the next feature? Build on it and hope it holds? If you’re tired of debating whether to clean up or move on, this session helps you frame the debt conversation in a way that supports both speed and stability.

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Upcoming TRIBE Events

 
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September 30, 2025 Squad Session Squad Only Virtual english

Technical Debt: When to Pay It and When to Walk Away ; Making smart trade-offs between progress, maintenance, and risk

Everyone has technical debt. The question is what to do with it. Refactor now? Wait for the next feature? Build on it and hope it holds? If you’re tired of debating whether to clean up or move on, this session helps you frame the debt conversation in a way that supports both speed and stability.

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October 2, 2025 Squad Session Squad Only Virtual english

The Career Path of the Architect ;Great architecture begins with great architects

Architecture doesn’t happen in diagrams. It happens in minds, seasoned, curious, sharp minds that understand how the pieces fit. But who’s shaping these minds? Who’s growing the next generation of digital architects? If you’re responsible for complex systems, and for the people designing them, this session is for you.

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October 14, 2025 Squad Session Squad Only Virtual english

Agile Infrastructure ; How to build technical foundations that don’t slow you down

Agile delivery often collides with inflexible infrastructures. One team wants to release weekly. Another is waiting six months for a new test environment. Sounds familiar? If your infra team is tired of being the bottleneck, and your devs are tired of waiting, this session opens a path forward.

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CIONET Partner Updates

CIONET Partner Updates

Recent Cases

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BT Keeps Engineers Safe with a Mobile App Built on OutSystems

BT Group plc is the UK’s largest provider of fixed-line, broadband, and mobile services. In just two months, three developers and a tech lead delivered a mobile app and web app. By their estimates, delivering the app with OutSystems was three times faster than their previous mobile app development approach.

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"With OutSystems, we're replacing an enormous number of legacy systems while reducing the cost of development across the board. We're also making business operations more efficient by providing mobile support for a wide range of applications." - Seiichi ShinagawaTechnical Leader IT Department, Mazda Motor Corporation

 
Challenge

Staring Over a "2025 Digital Cliff"

Mazda Motor Corporation recently celebrated its 100-years anniversary, selling nearly 1.5 million vehicles in the year ended March 2020. Mazda is justly proud of its engineering strength and design-focused products, but back in 2016, its IT department needed to escape from a burning platform.

"We called this as our "2025 Digital Cliff," says Seiichi Shinagawa, Technical Leader IT Department at Mazda Motor Corporation. "For the previous decade, we'd relied heavily on the Java Platform SE version 8, for most in-house application development. Support for that runs out in 2025. We had around 500 legacy systems to migrate to a new technology stack, and that looked impossible."

“We selected OutSystems because of its complete feature set, including visual design and assembly, high productivity for developers, high [integration] compatibility with existing systems, support for mobile apps, and the ability to deliver refined user experiences.” - Seiichi ShinagawaTechnical Leader IT Department, Mazda Motor Corporation

Mazda knew that it would take an army of developers and cost many (millions of dollars) to migrate all the applications in time unless they could dramatically improve their app dev efficiency.

Moreover, their software engineers found it difficult to keep up with the demand for new features with their current development tools. Plus, it was hard to provide users with modern, mobile-friendly experiences that would raise productivity.

Mazda started looking for a new IT framework. After considering various options, including general development frameworks, code generators, and low-code tools, Mazda settled on OutSystems as its modern application platform.

 

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Why Mazda chose OutSystems:
  • Full-stack visual development with no limits
  • Speed-up development and improve agility
  • Deliver web and mobile applications
 
Solution

Establishing Mazda's Software Development Factory and OutSystems Center of Excellence

Given the mammoth development backlog and Mazda's engineering excellence culture, the IT team decided to plan carefully, rather than rushing headlong into development. They wanted to ensure they had strong foundations to ensure consistent, efficient, and high-quality software engineering in the future.

"We aimed to use OutSystems for core systems across Mazda, so before starting a wide-scale roll-out, we needed to prepare an environment for repeatable success," says Shinagawa. "This included making interfaces with existing systems, a framework for authorization and security, and modular software architecture standards."

Most of 2018 was spent setting up this environment, but the investment has paid back ever since. "Our standards enable a consistent level of productivity and quality across projects," says Shinagawa.

Simultaneously, Mazda set up an in-house OutSystems Center of Excellence (CoE), a central team of OutSystems experts that provides governed standards and best practices to developers.

 

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"The CoE regularly provides one-week lean startup workshops, building UI screens, and processes directly with business representatives. The goal is to clearly understand requirements by prototyping on OutSystems. The users greatly appreciate this approach." - Seiichi ShinagawaTechnical Leader IT Department, Mazda Motor Corporation

 
Results

Happier Users and up to 75% Saving on Legacy Migration

While Mazda established its development standards and COE, they intentionally kept development projects to a minimum. But during 2019, adoption started to accelerate. Functions were now being implemented on the same level as they had been on the Java framework, and the development team started using OutSystems to replace its legacy Java applications.

Users liked the speed and agility of development and the much-improved user experiences of these new apps. In the second half of 2019, the number of OutSystems projects grew rapidly. The team delivered various applications, including core systems used for car manufacturing and distribution, back-office systems used by employees for internal processes, and systems for managers' daily work logs.

“We've seen a significant increase in development efficiency. We deliver simple applications up to five times faster and more complex apps around two-times faster. The quality of software delivery has improved as well. We've had no bugs attributable to problems with the platform itself.” - Seiichi ShinagawaTechnical Leader IT Department, Mazda Motor Corporation

"We are increasingly using OutSystems to replace legacy systems, including those built with the old .NET Framework and others built using COBOL," says Shinagawa. "The new apps have increased operational efficiency, thanks to the improved user experience and mobile device support, and we're getting high-praise from users on the front line."

OutSystems Development ramped up rapidly in late 2019. By 2020, Mazda had taken the strategic decision to drive broad adoption of OutSystems as the standard modern application platform for future development.

Increasing Mazda's Developer Pool

As part of its strategy to avoid the "2025 digital cliff," Mazda is increasing the proportion of software developed in-house by widening its developer pool. "The goal is to regain skills that we lost due to widespread IT outsourcing, and the OutSystems visual approach to development makes this easier as well," explains Shinagawa.

"OutSystems is now our standard application development approach," says Shinagawa. "And ultimately, we want every member of the IT department to learn at least some development techniques with OutSystems."

The team has been pleasantly surprised at the rapid learning curve for new OutSystems Developers. "We use the free two-week self-study learning paths provided by OutSystems, followed by several days of Mazda specific training to embed our in-house rules and methods. We've found that even IT staff that have never programmed before can easily learn to develop a basic application in a week. So, the cost of training is low," says Shinagawa.

 

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Development with No Limits

Mazda has been impressed by the versatility of the OutSystems platform. "Compared to conventional programming, we've found we can build almost everything we need using OutSystems," says Shinagawa.

Mazda is now rapidly working to end its reliance on legacy systems, retiring those that are no longer needed and extending the lives of others with the help of OutSystems. The company is using OutSystems both to replace legacy systems and create new, innovative applications. The company expects to reduce its legacy migration cost by two-thirds to three-quarters—a multi-million dollar saving.

Looking Ahead

Shinagawa says that the company wants "to continue rolling-out OutSystems, using it to replace the enormous number of legacy systems and reduce development costs across the board. We also want to use it to improve the efficiency of business operations, especially by providing mobile support for a wide range of applications."

He continues, "At Mazda, we see visual development as an important pillar of system development, alongside conventional programming. We look forward to seeing OutSystems continue to evolve as a platform that dramatically improves the productivity and speed of software development."

Technologies

Outsystems

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
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Bahadir Samli
Bahadir Samli
CIO
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Bart Kerkhofs
Vice President & Head of IT
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Michał Paprocki
Group CIO
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Chief Information Officer
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Annick Faes
Vice President IT and CIO Medical Devices EMEA
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Global IT Director
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Dirk De Bevere
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Thomas Kessler
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Pascal Pauwels
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Koen Segers
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Managing Director
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Director General Digital Transformation
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Chief Commercial Officer (CCO)
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Directeur général
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Head Of IT (CIO)
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Team

Luc Hendrikx
Luc Hendrikx
Partner - CEO
Inès De Bien
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Partner - CCO
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Daniel Eycken
Partner - COO
Hendrik Deckers
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Partner - Founder
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Jelte Scheys
Tribes Sales Director Belgium
foto Herman
Herman Roelandts
Tribe Master
Joseph Antoun
Joseph Antoun
Senior Programme Director
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Eman De Sutter
Programme Manager
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Shelly Deracourt
Programme Manager
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Charlotte Coen
Partner Success Manager
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Ivana Bradvica
Programme Manager
ML B-W-1
Martine Lefevre
Financial Controller
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Vlera Berisha
Community Manager
Phaedra Vanhaeren
Phaedra Vanhaeren
Programme 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!