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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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Volkswagen supports computer-aided engineering with a modern operating system

To simplify operating system management, Volkswagen migrated from UNIX to Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Workstations. Now close to 1,000 engineers in Volkswagen R&D now use Red Hat Enterprise Linux for computer-aided engineering (CAE) to support the latest professional graphics processing units (GPUs) and access the high volumes of memory.

Overview

To simplify operating system management for its research and development (R&D) engineers, Volkswagen migrated from UNIX to Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Workstations, a stable, supported platform for resource- and graphics-intensive workloads, such as aerodynamics analysis and crash test simulations. Close to 1,000 engineers in Volkswagen R&D now use Red Hat Enterprise Linux for computer-aided engineering (CAE) to support the latest professional graphics processing units (GPUs) and access the high volumes of memory needed for powerful processing. Standardizing on Red Hat Enterprise Linux also helps the automaker’s third-party vendors ensure their software is compatible and certified to meet Volkwagen’s security and performance needs.

Benefits:

  • Gained responsive foundation to support resource-intensive computer-aided engineering
  • Improved third-party software compatibility with Red Hat certification
  • Simplified security compliance and maintenance
 

Simplifying operating system complexity to support modern automotive engineering

At German automotive manufacturer Volkswagen, research and development (R&D) engineers rely on computer-aided engineering (CAE) for many of their tasks, from analyzing aerodynamics during vehicle development to simulating the impact of a collision. These tasks require powerful workstations to run analytics and provide graphical outputs.

“CAE replaced pen, pencil, and calculator for engineering calculations. In addition, running physical crash tests with real cars that were very costly was time-consuming, because you had to build a new car for each test. With CAE, you can run a crash simulation on your workstation, then analyze the data to inform design improvements, ” said Gunther Mayer, Integration Specialist, CAE-Integration, R&D, Volkswagen. 

In the early days of CAE, Volkswagen’s team of around 300 R&D engineers ran their simulations on a variety of UNIX desktops—including Silicon Graphics (SGI) IRIX, IBM AIX, Oracle Solaris, and HP-UX—as well as CAE products and tools from close to 100 vendors. These vendors used a variety of Linux distributions, making quality control and assurance more difficult.

As simulations became more advanced, however, this complexity affected productivity. Volkswagen sought a solution that would provide more robust workstation capabilities.

“Over time, crash test models have become more detailed. Today, photorealistic simulations show what happens inside the car in very fine detail,” said Mayer. “Good graphics are required and in turn, hardware acceleration and reliability. We needed a 64-bit operating system with enterprise support.”

 

Meeting workstation performance demands with stable, supported Linux

After exploring potential operating systems, including 64-bit Microsoft Windows, Volkswagen’s R&D engineering team chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Workstations, a version optimized for high-performance, graphically intensive workloads like CAE.

“We decided early to standardize on Red Hat Enterprise Linux because it was stable and offered commercial support,” said Mayer. “Security updates were built in, and we could call Red Hat or raise a ticket if there was an issue. It also has a long lifecycle, like many of our automotive applications, so we could easily keep any legacy version up to date for our engineers to run two - or even five-year-old applications if needed.” 

Volkswagen migrated 300 workstations, as well as tools and applications, from UNIX to Red Hat Enterprise Linux to support various processes across a range of departments, from crash simulations to computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for aerodynamics testing. In the years since its initial deployment, more than 1,000 engineers in Volkswagen R&D now use Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Workstations.

A Red Hat Technical Account Manager (TAM) provides consistent, ongoing support for the company’s CAE Linux client team, such as collaborative troubleshooting sessions using a screen-sharing approach for complex challenges. “Talking to an expert is far better than learning ourselves through errors. We just explain what we want to do, and our TAM shows us different approaches and their advantages and disadvantages,” said Mayer.

 

Delivering powerful processing to support innovative automotive engineering

Gained responsive foundation to support resource-intensive computing

Support for large amounts of RAM was a deciding factor in Volkswagen R&D’s choice of an operating system—and remains important as processing and other needs change. Its engineers needed an operating system that supported not only powerful CPUs from Intel and AMD but also large amounts of memory. The Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Workstations devices that Volkswagen R&D runs today offer a massive 768 GB of RAM. 

“We always use the latest and greatest hardware, including the latest professional GPUs,” said Mayer. “Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Workstation can meet the demands of those new components. The 64-bit Windows workstations lacked the memory needed for our simulations’ OpenGL [Open Graphics Library] graphics.”

Improved third-party software compatibility

To ensure compatibility of all of the third-party software products used by its engineers, Volkswagen R&D set up a workgroup with other industry contributors and automotive software providers to standardize on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. 

“Because we need reliable, production-ready technology, we now only install software from vendors who have tested and certified on Red Hat Enterprise Linux,” said Mayer. “Many of them were already running in our UNIX environment, so it was fairly easy for them to port their software and work with Red Hat to gain certification. The certification program is important for our R&D work.”

Focusing on a single Linux distribution avoids duplication of efforts to prepare different versions for different vendors, but also makes troubleshooting faster and easier.

“By uniting on one stable, supported Linux distribution, we know we can work together internally and with our vendors to replicate and resolve any issues,” said Oliver Langner, Application Manager, Group IT, Volkswagen.

Simplified security compliance and maintenance

Initially, Volkswagen’s IT department worried about the security quality of using a Linux distribution, but the R&D team quickly demonstrated how Red Hat Enterprise Linux helped them meet all security compliance requirements.

“Red Hat provides confirmed security patches for any bugs or vulnerabilities that we can apply quickly,” said Mayer. “Then Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Workstations lets us send the IT department a complete list of all of the security patches installed for faster verification.”

 

Expanding Linux benefits to new users and third-party vendors

The R&D team’s success with Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Workstations has attracted new users at Volkswagen, including software developers who have added various Python tools and packages and Group Innovation, a user group developing artificial intelligence (AI) data models.

Volkswagen continues exploring new versions of the operating system as they are introduced, including some initial migrations from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 to version 8 and starting to build a version 9 client image, to take advantage of the latest features and enhancements.

“Going forward, we see the adoption of a unified CAE Linux client based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Workstations across other brands within the Volkswagen Group, such as our server department, as well as externally with software vendors,” said Langner. 

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
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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
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Stef Schampaert
Country Managing Director BeLux
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SDWorx
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Gunter Van Craen
Chief Digital & Information Officer
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Thomas Kessler
Thomas Kessler
Partner | CIO Programme Leader
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Emmanuel Gob
Emmanuel Gob
CIO
DPD
pascal pauwels
Pascal Pauwels
CIO
Colruyt
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Koen Segers
Managing Director Belgium and Luxembourg
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Group IT Directo
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Dirk Deridder-1
Dirk Deridder
CTO - Technology Services & Practices
SMALS
Thierry Driesens
Thierry Driesens
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Koen Vandaele
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Liesbet D'hoker
Managing Director
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Director General Digital Transformation
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Chief Commercial Officer (CCO)
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Cassandre Laurent
Directeur général
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An Swalens
Head Of IT (CIO)
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Elke Laeremans
Chief Digital & Supply Chain Officer at Casa International
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Executive Advisor
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Dean
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Head of Digital EMEA
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Christel Plessers
Head of IT European Markets
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Team

Luc Hendrikx
Luc Hendrikx
CEO
Inès De Bien
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Partner - CCO
1-Feb-08-2022-10-22-08-68-AM
Daniel Eycken
Partner - COO
Hendrik Deckers
Hendrik Deckers
Founder - MD
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Jelte Scheys
Tribes Sales Director Belgium
foto Herman
Herman Roelandts
Tribe Master
Joseph Antoun
Joseph Antoun
Senior Program Director
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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!