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Belgium 01-10-2026 Squad Only Virtual english
Low-code, no-code, and AI tools are giving business teams more ability to build solutions themselves. The challenge is setting the right boundaries before fast local solutions become important operational assets. Three pressure points need attention. - Boundaries must be clear: teams need to know what they can build alone and what requires IT, security, or architecture review. - Supportability matters when a quick solution becomes business-critical. - Risk control remains necessary around data access, compliance, security, process dependency, and maintenance. The working question is simple: how do we enable business-led development while keeping security, ownership, and support under control? If you are trying to enable this safely, let’s compare approaches with others facing the same balance.
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Belgium 06-10-2026 All Members Physical english
As enterprise AI transitions from experimental Proofs of Concept (POCs) into real implementations, digital leaders are encountering a shared challenge: consumption-based public cloud token billing models do not fit neatly into traditional IT budgeting. Daily token consumption can rise unexpectedly, pushing expenses through the roof while arbitrary caps quickly kill momentum for innovation. For many CIOs, this raises an open strategic question: How do we keep costs under control while further stimulating innovation? During this interactive CIONET roundtable, we will explore among peers how to navigate AI tokenomics. Rather than treating public cloud LLMs as the default path, we will investigate how different execution environments, ranging from hybrid cloud setups and targeted on-premise models to specialised edge hardware, can help balance cost with performance. This session is intentionally designed as an open peer-to-peer exchange; a space to compare notes, challenge current ways of working and architectural setups, and discuss practical approaches to building predictable, scalable AI models.
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Belgium 08-10-2026 All Members Physical english
Every large organisation has been through a major transformation, and most through several. The word transformation is misleading because it suggests a beginning and an end. But organisations that do well are the ones that have given up on the idea of arriving and realise that constant change has become the new norm, and missing a single cycle leaves you permanently behind. This evening, two leaders will share how they think about this, coming from opposite directions. John Porter led Telenet through a sustained period of reinvention spanning the pandemic, a full reorganisation into tribes, M&A, and a shift to a performance driven culture. Along the way, the IT department was dissolved and technology was embedded inside autonomous tribes that run as small businesses. There is no CIO at Telenet. It is Telenet Group’s purpose to become a digital-first, customer-centric organisation. To deliver on this ambition, it has embarked on a transformation journey built on three pillars: (i) the implementation of a scaled-agile operating model (organisation), (ii) the acceleration of digitisation and automation underpinned by optimised IT systems, platforms, and strategic technology partnerships (digitisation), and (iii) a performance leadership culture focused on accountability, ownership, and a change mindset (culture). Kris Vervaet, on the other hand, has just become CIO at KBC, the bank whose mobile app has been ranked best in the world three times and whose AI assistant Kate now handles 70% of customer queries on its own. But Kris is no ordinary CIO: he ran DPG Media Belgium as CEO, and KBC went looking for someone who has led transformation rather than someone who manages technology. So while one organisation got rid of the CIO role, the other reinvented it, and both are thriving. The conversation will range across organisational and IT redesign, the rise of digital-first customer experience, the impact of AI on how every business is run, and the harder questions of culture, talent and leadership. The question for every leader in the room is what that tells you about your own role, your own operating model, and the pace at which you are prepared to keep evolving.
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CIONET Trailblazer: CISO: The Shift from Prevention to Resilience: Turning Visibility into Execution
Published on: January 28, 2026 @ 9:48 AM
CIONET Trailblazer: AI Transformation: Bridging the Cultural Divide to Achieve Competitive Advantage
Published on: December 17, 2025 @ 9:16 AM
Leverages Trend Micro Cloud One to boost cloud security and compliance
Silicon Overdrive chose Trend Micro as their security and compliance partner to help deliver on their security-first approach when helping customers leverage the power of cloud providers.
Silicon Overdrive, established in 1995, helps customers to understand and uphold their portion of the shared responsibility model to ensure data and workloads are not at risk of being compromised. Based in South Africa, Silicon Overdrive provides IT managed services, support, and solutions. Their teams have significant experience and expertise in AWS, Microsoft® Azure™, Microsoft 365®, Microsoft® Intune®, Microsoft® Teams® collaboration, ICT security, compliance and auditing, SEO services, and software development. Further, Silicon Overdrive assists customers in migrating, securing, optimizing, and managing their IT infrastructures, as well as achieve and maintain security compliance.
Ensuring that their customers secure their workloads and adhere to their specific industry compliance requirements, such as PCI DSS, ISO 27001, POPIA, GDPR, and HIPAA, Silicon Overdrive designed a series of assessments and refined them over the years. “The assessments were performed manually and were thus time-consuming,” says Warwick Levey, Sales and Marketing Manager at Silicon Overdrive.
As an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner, Silicon Overdrive also leverages the AWS Well-Architected Review (WAR) framework. This framework is designed to help cloud architects build secure, high-performing, resilient, and efficient workloads. Silicon Overdrive needed a cost-effective solution that would allow them to speed up and automate Well-Architected Review assessments.
“With Trend Micro Cloud One – Conformity, we can decrease the time it takes to identify security risks and work towards remediating those risks before the customer has any business impact,” says Levey.
"The fact that Trend Micro products seamlessly integrate into the AWS environment without hindering system performance was another selling point."
Warwick Levey
Sales and Marketing Manager, Silicon Overdrive
Silicon Overdrive chose Trend Micro as their preferred security and compliance solution. “We selected Trend Micro based on the comprehensive security and compliance checks, automated self-healing, remediation recommendations, and reporting across a customer’s various environments. We were not able to find another solution as comprehensive,” says Levey
“The fact that Trend Micro products seamlessly integrate into the AWS environment without hindering system performance was another selling point. Our customers don’t want to add something into their environment that’s going to impact performance. With Trend Micro, our customers get automated scans and critical alerts while maintaining the same performance,” says Levey.
Trend Micro also helps Silicon Overdrive customers ensure compliance with PCI DSS, ISO 27001, GDPR, and other compliance standards.
Silicon Overdrive began using Trend Micro Cloud One – Workload Security to secure customer IT environments without compromising performance. “Trend Micro Cloud One – Workload Security is our solution of choice to ensure our customer’s cloud environments are secure and meet compliance requirements,” says Ross Davie, Business Development Director at Silicon Overdrive.
Trend Micro Cloud One – Conformity was added to help them assess customer environments faster. “As our journey into cloud evolved, Trend Micro Cloud One – Conformity was a natural progression for us, specifically for compliance customers, because it automates the security and compliance checks we were doing manually,” says Levey.
Conformity also automates many of the WAR technical assessments, freeing up Silicon Overdrive team members to focus on remediation efforts. “Our goal is to remediate any risks immediately. Conformity allows us to do just that,” says Levey.
"As our journey into cloud evolved, Trend Micro Cloud One – Conformity was a natural progression for us, specifically for compliance customers, because it automates the security and compliance checks we were doing manually."
Warwick Levey
Sales and Marketing Manager, Silicon Overdrive
Silicon Overdrive’s partnership with Trend Micro helps secure customer environments so they can get the most from their cloud investments. For example, Silicon Overdrive currently works with an e-commerce company that must maintain confidentiality, integrity, and availability of its customers’ records while meeting security, GDPR, and POPI compliance requirements. Working with Silicon Overdrive, the company uses Conformity to ensure that all those requirements are met. Conformity scans the company’s environment every hour and sends relevant alerts to the team. “If a notification comes in, an engineer can log into the customer environment and remediate the issue,” says Levey.
These alerts are ranked as the top Conformity feature by Levey’s team. “My favorite element is the real-time monitoring and alerting,” says Charlton Daniels, Silicon Overdrive’s Senior AWS Technical Lead. “The automated security alerts offer our customers protection in real-time,” adds Christopher Voges, a Silicon Overdrive AWS Engineer.
Conformity reporting options include AWS Well-Architected Review, ISO 27001, PCI DSS, GDPR, HIPAA, and NIST which result in significant time and cost savings for the customer. “Trend Micro Cloud One - Conformity is a welcome addition to our Well-Architected Review process. This is due to the extensive security checks and compliance reporting we get access to, coupled with the automated self-healing functionality,” says Levey.
Silicon Overdrive has a clearly defined goal of helping customers solve business challenges using the best suited technology in the market. This focus has led to various engagements across Africa and beyond. “We are excited about the possibilities the partnership with Trend Micro has brought forward. We believe this partnership will continue to strengthen and grow”, says Levey
“As companies embrace the new business challenges and work from home, Conformity can help companies secure and adhere to compliance standards effortlessly and at a much lower price point,” concludes Davie.
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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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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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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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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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