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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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Sandstone Technology teams with Trend Micro to transform the banking industry by securely shifting to AWS

Teams with Trend Micro to transform the banking industry by securely shifting to AWS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Since it was founded in 1996, Sandstone Technology has consistently transformed the banking industry by simplifying the customer journey and the employee experience. One of the company’s biggest milestones came when it set out to overcome a major roadblock it often faced when working with banking partners — on-site deployments within the banks themselves. Not only were the logistics involved a major pain point for the bank, the time they took to resolve was equally challenging, with 12+ months being the norm. Moving to the cloud was the solution. But the idea of doing so raised significant concerns in the highly regulated banking industry. So, to address that apprehension, Sandstone teamed with Trend Micro. Trend Micro Cloud One Conformity service uses preconfigured resources to activate, deploy, and configure all necessary security protocols on AWS. Conformity provides cloud security posture management to ensure the team’s cloud services are configured to industry and compliance best practices. Since teaming with Trend Micro and AWS, not only has Sandstone removed the on-premises pain point for its banking customers, by shifting everything to the cloud, it’s done so securely. After migrating to AWS, there hasn’t been a single reportable security incident. What’s more, by shifting their banking customers to AWS, the average solution deployment time has been shortened to just six months.

 
 

With an AWS Cloud model, we convey to our customers that they don’t have to deploy, they just have to subscribe, and we knew that would be hugely attractive for them.

Photo of Chaitanya Pinnamaneni  Chaitanya Pinnamaneni - Chief Technology Officer, Sandstone Technology
 
 

 

A HISTORY OF TRANSFORMING THE BANKING INDUSTRY, SINCE 1996

Sandstone Technology was founded more than 25 years ago by two dedicated entrepreneurs who believed technology held great things for the world of banking. The company spent two decades delivering a number of “firsts” for the industry. For example, it was the first to go to market with an internet banking solution that utilized two-factor authentication. It was also the first to deploy a device-agnostic, mobile-banking tool (using HTML 5) in Australia. Then, the company found itself facing a new challenge: as Sandstone worked with their banking customers to deploy new solutions, they frequently needed to compromise various components in order to meet the requirements of deployment teams within those banks. “Rolling things out on- premises was a huge pain point for our customer’s deployment teams,” says Chaitanya Pinnamaneni, Chief Technology Officer at Sandstone Technology. “Not only did it mean figuring out a way to fit into their systems, which was often less than ideal, it was time consuming — we want to speed up their time to market, so taking 12+ months to deploy just wasn’t pragmatic.”

 

Everyone just comes together to get things done. It’s never a question of can it be done, it always how can it be done in the best way.

Photo of Chaitanya Pinnamaneni  Chaitanya Pinnamaneni - Chief Technology Officer, Sandstone Technology
 
 
 

“YOU DON'T HAVE TO DEPLOY, YOU JUST HAVE TO SUBSCRIBE”

The team at Sandstone knew the solution was to convince customers to forgo on-premise deployments in favor of the cloud. Doing so would dramatically reduce the time and headaches involved in the process. “But this was 2018,” Pinnamaneni says “and cyber security, especially in the area of banking, was very new. It was a huge issue.” Still, Sandstone believed the cloud was the future and understood it held massive potential for its customers. “With an AWS model, we convey to customers that they don’t have to deploy, they just have to subscribe, and we knew that would be hugely attractive for them,” Pinnamaneni says. “Taking advantage of solutions like AWS LambdaAmazon DynamoDB, and Amazon EC2, was exactly what they needed.” But first, Sandstone would need to identify a robust, fortified solution to alleviate all security concerns. That would mean finding the right partner.

 

We looked at the options out there, and Trend Micro was the only one who could provide an entire suite in a virtual package. Their Cloud One platform is a single dashboard solution that offers protection for our cloud database and delivers compliance reports at any time and during the 30-day reporting cycle. That made them the easy decision.

Photo of Chaitanya Pinnamaneni  Chaitanya Pinnamaneni - Chief Technology Officer, Sandstone Technology
 
 

 

CLOUD ONE MADE TREND MICRO AN EASY DECISION

Banking systems contain highly sensitive personal identifiable information (PII), credit card numbers, and loan application information. The funds held within various accounts are also highly vulnerable. This meant that not just any partner would do. “We looked at the options out there, and Trend Micro was the only one who could provide an entire suite in a virtual package,” Pinnamaneni says. “Their Cloud One platform is a single-dashboard solution that offers protection for our cloud database and delivers compliance reports at any time for our 30-day reporting cycle. That made them the easy decision.”

In fact, choosing to partner with Trend Micro was soon validated during one particularly memorable meeting with a prospective, high-profile banking customer. “The initial tone of the meeting was highly charged and almost combative,” Pinnamaneni recalls. “Then they asked who our security partner was. I said Trend Micro and immediately the expression on his face changed. He relaxed, and the whole mood of the meeting shifted 180 degrees. That’s when I knew we’d made the right decision.”

In the years since, those sentiments have proven to be accurate. Since migrating to AWS there hasn’t been a single reportable security incident.

 
 
 

FROM 12+ MONTHS TO JUST 6

As the team at Sandstone anticipated, providing banking customers with solutions that were hosted on AWS instead of on-premise - along with partnering with Trend Micro - made everything more secure and allowed solutions to deploy faster. The company now delivers the nimble, competitive advantage its clients need. In fact, the average time to deploy has dropped from 12+ months to just six. “We were able to move fast thanks to the AWS culture and because of the way Trend Micro approaches challenges,” Pinnamaneni says. “Everyone just comes together to get things done. It’s never a question of if it can it be done, it's always how can it be done in the best way.”

 
 

NEXT UP: BUILDING A GLOBAL BANKING PLATFORM

Sandstone is confident about what it can achieve together with Trend Micro and AWS, and recently started building a global banking platform. “As we expand onto the global stage, we don’t get a second chance to make a first impression,” Pinnamaneni says. “Now that we have the perfect team in place, there’s nothing holding us back.”

 
 

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
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Bart Kerkhofs
Vice President & Head of IT
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Group CIO
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Chief Information Officer
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Managing Director
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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

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Luc Hendrikx
CEO
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Daniel Eycken
Partner - COO
Hendrik Deckers
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Founder - MD
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Jelte Scheys
Tribes Sales Director Belgium
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Herman Roelandts
Tribe Master
Joseph Antoun
Joseph Antoun
Senior Program Director
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Eman De Sutter
Program Manager
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Shelly Deracourt
Program Manager
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Charlotte Coen
Partner Success Manager
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Ivana Bradvica
Junior Event Manager
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Martine Lefevre
Financial Controller
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Vlera Berisha
Junior Community Manager
Phaedra Vanhaeren
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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!