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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 23-9-25 Squad Only Virtual english

Cybersecurity Without the Burnout ; Refocusing effort when alerts, threats, and pressure won’t stop

Security teams are overwhelmed. Too many tools. Too many alerts. Too few people. And now, increasing pressure from the board to protect everything, everywhere, all the time. Expect honest reflection, shared strategies, and a conversation that cuts through compliance noise and focuses on what to do when your team is stretched and your risk is rising.

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Belgium 23-9-25 Invitation Only Physical english

Reclaim the cloud : Powering Belgian Finance with Sovereignty

In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, the financial services industry in Belgium faces a critical juncture regarding its cloud adoption strategy. While the allure of cloud computing – with its promise of scalability, agility, and innovation – is undeniable, the unique regulatory demands and paramount need for data sovereignty present significant challenges. This CIONET roundtable, aims to bring together Digital Leaders from the Belgian financial sector to discuss how to navigate these complexities. We will explore how financial institutions can leverage cloud technologies while ensuring complete control over their data, maintaining compliance with stringent European regulations like GDPR and DORA, and mitigating geopolitical risks.

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Belgium 24-9-25 Invitation Only Physical english

Bridging the Unbridgeable: IT Meets M(i)OT ; Converged infrastructures demand converged security

As smart devices proliferate across operational environments — from sensors on factory lines and GPS trackers in logistics fleets to wearables in healthcare and connected systems in smart cities — the integration of Managed IoT (MiOT) is accelerating. But with it comes a surge in cybersecurity risks. No longer isolated or air-gapped, OT systems are becoming fully networked, remotely accessible, and deeply entwined with IT. This creates a vulnerable, highly complex digital mesh, one where a single compromised device can trigger physical, financial, and reputational consequences.

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Upcoming TRIBE Events

 
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September 23, 2025 Squad Session Squad Only Virtual english

Cybersecurity Without the Burnout ; Refocusing effort when alerts, threats, and pressure won’t stop

Security teams are overwhelmed. Too many tools. Too many alerts. Too few people. And now, increasing pressure from the board to protect everything, everywhere, all the time. Expect honest reflection, shared strategies, and a conversation that cuts through compliance noise and focuses on what to do when your team is stretched and your risk is rising.

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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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CIONET Partner Updates

CIONET Partner Updates

Recent Cases

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Rolls-Royce turns to digital twins to improve jet engine efficiency

The multinational aerospace and defense company is helping its customers dramatically reduce the amount of carbon their planes produce and optimize maintenance schedules using predictive analytics.

Say the name Rolls-Royce and most people think of automobiles, but the British multinational aerospace and defense company has been out of the car business since Rolls-Royce Motors was sold off in the 1970s. Today, Rolls-Royce Holdings is the second-largest maker of aircraft engines in the world, with a foot in marine propulsion and energy as well. Its engines are used in fighter jets, business jets, and more than 50% of long-haul planes.

Now the company is deploying digital twin technology, analytics, and machine learning to dramatically reduce the amount of carbon its aircraft engines produce while also optimizing maintenance to help its customers keep their planes in the air longer.

“Rolls-Royce has been monitoring engines and charging per hour for at least 20 years,” says Stuart Hughes, chief information and digital officer at Rolls-Royce. “That part of the business isn’t new. But as we’ve evolved, we’ve begun to treat the engine as a singular engine. It’s much more about the personalization of that engine.”

Using its Intelligent Engine platform, the company monitors how each engine flies, the conditions in which it’s flying, and how the pilot uses it.

“We’re tailoring our maintenance regimes to make sure that we’re optimizing for the life an engine has, not the life the manual says it should have,” Hughes says. “It’s truly variable service looking at each engine as an individual engine.”

Rolls-Royce’s platform has helped it extend the time between maintenance for some engines by up to 50%, thereby enabling it to dramatically reduce its inventory of parts and spares. Perhaps most importantly, however, it has greatly improved the efficiency of its engines, saving 22 million tons of carbon to date, according to the company. Rolls-Royce is even using AI to better understand how to handle metal scrap and waste from parts when they reach the end of their lifespan.

 

“Since 2014, we’ve helped one of our airlines avoid 85 million kilograms of fuel and over 200 million kilograms of carbon dioxide,” Hughes says. “We did that by taking data on how the pilot is flying the plane, how the plane is operated, how they do the operational funding around that. We found data and insights that helped them to make better decisions. In areas where they felt there were barriers to change, we helped them design new policies, new procedures.”

 

Under the hood

To fuel its Intelligent Engine platform, Rolls-Royce is using a combination of two-way, real-time data captured from its engines as they fly, and larger datasets captured in batch after planes land, to power its analytics. It feeds the data into a Microsoft Azure data lake and then into a Databricks “lakehouse,” where it can be used with Databricks machine learning and AI tools. (Databricks uses the term to refer to its open architecture that combines the features of a data lake and data warehouse.)

Between the real-time data and the data collected after landing, each flight generates about half a gigabyte of data. The real-time data is used for the company’s “Engine Condition Monitoring” service, which analyzes the data for irregularities in engine performance for the purpose of predictive maintenance. The analytics can determine in-flight whether a full inspection will be necessary upon landing, helping the airline plan ahead and minimize travel disruptions. The other data can be used for more detailed predictive modeling.

 

“We’re using that data to check that the engine is still within all our quality and safety tolerances, but also to understand how the pilot has flown that engine,” Hughes says. “That means we can offer to extend the maintenance window on that engine longer for a specific customer. The benefit to the customer is the customer sees less interruption because the engine is on the plane for longer, so they can use it more. The benefit for us is that we can optimize how we actually do the maintenance.”

With Rolls-Royce’s approach, its customers can tell the company the mission of each engine — the environment in which it’s expected to fly, for instance. Rolls-Royce can then tailor the maintenance schedule and analytics to those conditions. An engine on a plane that operates in Qatar, for instance, can be expected to deal with a certain amount of sand in the atmosphere.

“We use machine learning to look at all of the data that we’ve got from the past and use all the information we’ve collected to help us understand the maintenance regime that engine will need going forward,” Hughes says. “Then we can adapt our pricing to be much more specific to that.”

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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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
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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
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Piet De Ceuleners
Global IT Director
Melexis
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Dirk De Bevere
Large Enterprise Sales Leader
Telenet Business
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Stef Schampaert
Country Managing Director BeLux
Red Hat
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Vice President Head of Belux / Head of Comms Benelux
Cognizant
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Group IT director
SDWorx
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Chief Digital & Information Officer
Bekaert
Thomas Kessler
Thomas Kessler
Partner | CIO Programme Leader
Deloitte
Emmanuel Gob
Emmanuel Gob
CIO
DPD
pascal pauwels
Pascal Pauwels
CIO
Colruyt
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Koen Segers
Managing Director Belgium and Luxembourg
Dell Technologies
benoit dewaele
Benoît Dewaele
Group IT Directo
Vandemoortele
Dirk Deridder-1
Dirk Deridder
CTO - Technology Services & Practices
SMALS
Thierry Driesens
Thierry Driesens
CIO
TVH
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Koen Vandaele
CIO
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Liesbet D'hoker
Managing Director
Kyndryl BeLux
steven-vermeulen
Steven Vermeulen
CIO
Digitaal Vlaanderen
Jack Hamande
Jack Hamande
Director General Digital Transformation
Federale Overheidsdienst Beleid en Ondersteuning
Tom Tomczak
Tom Tomczak
Chief Commercial Officer (CCO)
NRB
1726588748718
Cassandre Laurent
Directeur général
Agence du Numérique
an swalens
An Swalens
Head Of IT (CIO)
National Bank of Belgium
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Elke Laeremans
Chief Digital & Supply Chain Officer at Casa International
CIONET Belgium - Advisory Board Member - Koen Van Loo
Koen Van Loo
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Group S.
Peter Sany
Peter Sany
Executive Advisor
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Dean
Antwerp Management School
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Marleen Thorré
Head of Digital EMEA
Mitsubishi Chemical Group
christel-plessers
Christel Plessers
Head of IT European Markets
Mercedes-Benz Europe
bauduin cor
Baudouin Corlùy
Chief Market Development Officer
LCL Data Centers

Team

Luc Hendrikx
Luc Hendrikx
Partner - CEO
Inès De Bien
Inès De Bien
Partner - CCO
1-Feb-08-2022-10-22-08-68-AM
Daniel Eycken
Partner - COO
Hendrik Deckers
Hendrik Deckers
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
1-Dec-16-2021-02-15-57-02-PM
Eman De Sutter
Programme Manager
4-Feb-08-2022-10-22-09-03-AM
Shelly Deracourt
Programme Manager
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Charlotte Coen
Partner Success Manager
Untitled design (1)-Nov-22-2023-08-56-42-6802-AM
Ivana Bradvica
Programme Manager
ML B-W-1
Martine Lefevre
Financial Controller
Vlera Berishaa (1)
Vlera Berisha
Community Manager
Phaedra Vanhaeren
Phaedra Vanhaeren
Programme Manager

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