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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 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 20, 2025 Squad Session Invitation Only Virtual polish

Motywowanie pracowników - programy, metody i dobre praktyki

To oczywiste, że o sukcesie organizacji decydują ludzie. Ci powinni być zmotywowani i uśmiechnięci. Wysoki poziom identyfikacji i zaangażowania buduje się długo i mozolne, ale najlepsi managerowie mają sprawdzone techniki, praktyki i metody cierpliwego podnoszenia motywacji zespołów.

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August 20, 2025 Squad Session Invitation Only Physical polish

SECURITY TRIBE: SESJA STRATEGICZNA

Podczas wystąpień, case studies i stolików dyskusyjnych omówimy następujące zagadnienia:    Wdrożenie Zero Trust Cybersecurity risk assesment / Risk management / Zarządzanie ryzykiem w organizacji kluczowej Zarządzanie tożsamością / PIM/IAM / IAM Bezpieczenstwo w łancuchu życia aplikacji i systemów (Bezpieczestwo SDLC)

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August 26, 2025 Squad Session Invitation Only Virtual polish

AI w chmurze czy on-prem? Praktyczne porównanie środowisk w budowie i rozwoju projektów

Marek Laskowski z Domański Zakrzewski Palinka, opierając się na doświadczeniach z wdrażania rozwiązań AI zarówno w chmurze, jak i w środowiskach on-premises, przedstawi praktyczne porównanie obu podejść. Omówi kluczowe aspekty: od kosztów i time-to-market, przez wymagane kompetencje i model organizacji zespołów IT, po utrzymanie i skalowanie rozwiązań. Marek przyjrzy się zaletom i wadom obu modeli i wskaże, jakie kryteria powinny decydować o wyborze środowiska dla konkretnego projektu AI.

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CIONET Partner Updates

CIONET Partner Updates

Recent Cases

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GPT-4 deepens the conversation on Duolingo.

“Artificial intelligence has always been a huge part of our strategy,” says principal product manager Edwin Bodge. “We had been using it for personalizing lessons and running Duolingo English Tests. But there were gaps in a learner’s journey that we wanted to fill: conversation practice, and contextual feedback on mistakes.”

Three mobile screens of the Duolingo app.

 

 

Over 50 million learners rely on Duolingo every month to teach them a second language. With a simple user interface and fun-but-competitive leaderboards, Duolingo supports 40 languages across 100+ courses. Learners advance from simple vocabulary exercises to complicated sentence structures with taps and swipes on their phone. 

If a learner wants to advance beyond basic proficiency, it’s helpful to understand the rules of grammar. But true proficiency in a language requires conversation, ideally with a native speaker, something not everyone has access to. 

“Artificial intelligence has always been a huge part of our strategy,” says principal product manager Edwin Bodge. “We had been using it for personalizing lessons and running Duolingo English Tests. But there were gaps in a learner’s journey that we wanted to fill: conversation practice, and contextual feedback on mistakes.”

 

 

DuolingoMax mobile screens

 

 

Duolingo turned to OpenAI’s GPT-4 to advance the product with two new features: Role Play, an AI conversation partner, and Explain my Answer, which breaks down the rules when you make a mistake, in a new subscription tier called Duolingo Max. 

“We wanted AI-powered features that were deeply integrated into the app and leveraged the gamified aspect of Duolingo that our learners love,” says Bodge.

Duolingo engineers had tried using GPT-3 to supplement some of the human-powered features in its earlier chat feature. “It was close to being ready,” said lead engineer Bill Peterson, “but we didn’t feel it was at the point where we could confidently integrate it to handle the complex automated aspects of chats.” 

Previously, Duolingo attempted to “chat” with learners through scripted conversations incorporating classic scenarios like ordering food, meeting someone for the first time, or buying a plane ticket. But Bodge says what Duolingo needed was the ability to converse with learners in niche contexts and “immersively”—to have a free-flowing conversation about basketball or the bliss of reaching the top of a mountain. GPT-4 has learned from enough public data to create a flexible back and forth for the learner.

“We wanted AI-powered features that were deeply integrated into the app and leveraged the gamified aspect of Duolingo that our learners love.”
Edwin Bodge, Principal Product Manager, Duolingo
 
 
Duolingo Max Roleplay

 

 

There is a best practice in language learning called “implicit learning.” Learning through repeated use of vocabulary and grammar in an array of contexts—in other words, through practice—is more effective than memorizing rules. This posed an interesting challenge to Duolingo.

Many of Duolingo’s learners want to learn the explicit rules, and the company has tried to teach them with both pre-written Grammar Tips and artificial intelligence. Even with GPT-3, the implementation was difficult. Teaching grammar requires a specific understanding of the error and why a learner made it. One incorrect term in the explanation could teach the concept incorrectly or leave the user confused and dissatisfied. 

“GPT-4 gives us far more confidence in the accuracy of AI responses in Explain my Answer,” says Peterson.

With the new features, earners will be able to click “Explain my answer”, and GPT-4 will give an initial response. From there, the learner can return to the lesson, or get further explanation, and GPT-4 can dynamically update. Duolingo will gauge the quality of GPT-4’s responses by how deep the learner needs to go before returning to the lesson.

 

 

Duolingo Max Explain My Answer

 

 

The team sees the potential with GPT-4 to provide a more effective and engaging learning experience than ever before, which should improve learning outcomes. In addition, Peterson says the ease of experimenting with GPT-4 has simplified the entire engineering process. 

“Within a day we were able to build a prototype that convinced us this was something we wanted to explore more. It gets us from zero-to-ninety-five percent very quickly. Then we can work manually, hand tuning data to get the last five percent,” he says. 

Now his team focuses more on testing and honing data sets.

“It’s definitely changed our engineering process internally. And the features we’ve put together have come out faster than they would have before GPT-4.”
Bill Peterson, Lead Engineer, Duolingo

Duolingo Max is available to users today. For now, Duolingo is using these new features in Spanish and French, with plans to expand to more languages and introduce new features that will keep them at the forefront of language learning.

Technologies

OpenAI's GPT-4

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
Untitled design (1)-Apr-01-2022-10-58-34-57-AM
Michał Paprocki
Group CIO
Euroclear
1-Feb-29-2024-11-34-59-8990-AM
Manfred Boudreaux-Dehmer
Chief Information Officer
NATO
Untitled design-Nov-22-2023-08-42-05-3178-AM
Annick Faes
Vice President IT and CIO Medical Devices EMEA
Johnson & Johnson
Piet_De_Ceuleners
Piet De Ceuleners
Global IT Director
Melexis
1658251930890
Dirk De Bevere
Large Enterprise Sales Leader
Telenet Business
Untitled design-7
Stef Schampaert
Country Managing Director BeLux
Red Hat
CIONET Belgium - Advisory Board Member - Geert Lejon
Geert Lejon
Vice President Head of Belux / Head of Comms Benelux
Cognizant
Kevin_Ledegen
Kevin Ledegen
Group IT director
SDWorx
Gunter-Van-Craen_Small
Gunter Van Craen
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
Untitled design (4)-Dec-13-2023-10-53-15-5032-AM
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
Untitled design-Sep-18-2023-11-59-29-7866-AM
Koen Vandaele
CIO
Delen Private Bank
Untitled design (4)-Jun-12-2023-01-23-11-7540-PM
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
Untitled design (2)-Apr-01-2022-10-58-34-68-AM
Elke Laeremans
Chief Digital & Supply Chain Officer at Casa International
CIONET Belgium - Advisory Board Member - Koen Van Loo
Koen Van Loo
CIO
Group S.
Peter Sany
Peter Sany
Executive Advisor
Zoom
CIONET Belgium - Advisory Board Member - Steven De Haes
Steven De Haes
Dean
Antwerp Management School
Marleen Thorré
Marleen Thorré
Head of Digital EMEA
Mitsubishi Chemical Group
christel-plessers
Christel Plessers
Head of IT European Markets
Mercedes-Benz Europe

Team

Luc Hendrikx
Luc Hendrikx
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
Founder - MD
Untitled design (1)-2
Jelte Scheys
Tribes Sales Director Belgium
foto Herman
Herman Roelandts
Tribe Master
Joseph Antoun
Joseph Antoun
Senior Program Director
1-Dec-16-2021-02-15-57-02-PM
Eman De Sutter
Program Manager
4-Feb-08-2022-10-22-09-03-AM
Shelly Deracourt
Program Manager
Untitled design (5)-Sep-01-2022-02-47-55-60-PM
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!