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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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Paf’s engineering team creates 85 custom GPTs to surge developer productivity

Paf adopted ChatGPT Enterprise across its entire company, with engineers using custom GPTs on a daily basis to speed up routine development tasks. Paf also integrated ChatGPT Enterprise into the grit:lab coding academy. 70% of Paf employees actively use ChatGPT Enterprise, spanning business teams like finance, HR, marketing, and customer support.

Evaluating various AI models

Paf is an international gaming company founded in 1966 in the Åland Islands by the Red Cross, Save the Children, and Folkhälsan, and is an industry leader in responsible gaming. With around 315 employees from 29 countries, Paf has contributed over 447.5 million euros to benefit society since it was founded.

As an organization committed to staying ahead of the technology curve, Paf recognized the transformative potential of AI early on. When generative AI began gaining traction, the company swiftly adopted and evaluated various AI systems to understand how this technology could propel its employees and business operations forward. 

In their search for the ideal generative AI solution, Paf experimented with LLAMA, Claude and GPT-4. When the team conducted head-to-head accuracy and cost comparisons, GPT-4 was 25% more accurate than competitors, without being more expensive. Paf decided to use GPT-4 as its AI solution.

 

"A man in a beige sweater and glasses speaks into a microphone at an event. People in green hats and lanyards are in the background.

 

 

Creating custom GPTs to streamline the development process

Paf rolled out ChatGPT Enterprise to the entire team of 100 developers, and now finds ChatGPT Enterprise indispensable for their daily tasks. “I use ChatGPT 20 times a day for tasks like boilerplate code creation or learning a new programming language,” says frontend developer Krista Koivisto. In addition to using ChatGPT Enterprise for general coding assistance, the engineering team has created over 85 custom GPTs to support specific use cases. 

One of the engineering team’s favorite applications of custom GPTs is a suite of specialized coding GPTs that help streamline the development process, from creating backend infrastructure to generating frontend components:

  • Swagger GPT converts Swagger JSON API definitions into TypeScript service endpoint definitions per Paf’s coding standards.

  • TypeScript GPT writes the backend service code using the endpoint definitions, reusing existing session validation functions.

  • GraphQL Nexus GPT generates GraphQL Nexus schemas, integrating existing helper functions to interact with the frontend.

  • Relay GPT creates the React Relay hooks using GraphQL Nexus schemas for communicating with our backends.

  • React GPT writes React components using Paf’s React and TypeScript style guidelines and core component library.

 

Swagger GPT converts Swagger JSON API definitions into TypeScript service endpoint definitions per Paf’s coding standards.

TypeScript GPT writes the backend service code using the endpoint definitions, reusing existing session validation functions.

GraphQL Nexus GPT generates GraphQL Nexus schemas, integrating existing helper functions to interact with the frontend.

Relay GPT creates the React Relay hooks using GraphQL Nexus schemas for communicating with our backends.

React GPT writes React components using Paf’s React and TypeScript style guidelines and core component library.

 

“Focused GPTs avoid overloading models and curb hallucinations,” says Koivisto. “We automatically generate functioning boilerplate implementations with far less effort.” By chaining tailored GPTs together instead of relying on the general model, Paf's developers can quickly generate accurate, standardized application flows and APIs nearly automatically.

 

Empowering every engineer to be a systems architect

Building on its success with the development team’s custom GPTs, Paf has integrated ChatGPT Enterprise into the grit:lab coding academy to accelerate training for 65 aspiring developers. Grit:lab students use ChatGPT for a variety of coding-related tasks, including:

  • Understanding new programming concepts 

  • Debugging code errors efficiently

  • Learning syntax and structure across different languages

  • Generating test data quickly

This AI-augmented software development approach is creating a new breed of software developer, one who has more systems architect knowledge from the start. “Using ChatGPT, the junior developers think at a higher, systematic level,” says Kim Gripenberg, a DevOps engineer, noting that both grit:lab students and junior developers at Paf progress years faster with AI assistance. Instead of getting bogged down in syntax errors and coding basics, developers can focus on the overall application and system design.

 

People working at desks with multiple computer monitors in an office. One person wears headphones, and a green coffee cup is on a desk.

 

 

ChatGPT delivers the equivalent output of 12 employees

In the next year, Paf plans to fully integrate ChatGPT Enterprise and the OpenAI API into all of its processes. “AI is here to stay. Either you are on the train,” says Fredrik Wiklund, Chief Technology Officer, “or you are back at the station, watching it leave.” The company envisions GPTs eventually handling more coding tasks like writing, testing, and deploying software, freeing up developers to focus on higher-level, systems-level work. 

This AI-augmented approach will allow Paf to innovate with a velocity similar to that of a much larger company. By integrating generative AI into every part of its business, Paf is set to maximize its positive impact for employees, customers, and communities it serves.

“We estimate ChatGPT is doing the equivalent work of 12 full time employees,” commented Wiklund. “The impact to our business has exceeded our expectations, and this is only the start.”

 

A man and a woman in green lanyards and green hats look at their smartphones.

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
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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
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Koen Vandaele
CIO
Delen Private Bank
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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
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!