[gallery columns="4" ids="17611,17614,17613,17612,17616,17615,17617,17618"]

Beginning of November CIONET attended the IFIP World CIO Forum in Xi’an, China. Over 1000 delegates we present in Xi’an, the former capital of China, including 20 international guests. Frits Bussemaker, Partner CIONET attended as Vice Chairman of the International Steering Committee of the WCF2014 together with Paul Piebinga, CIO Enexis and Maarten Hillenaar, former CIO of the Dutch Government. Both presented a keynote at the conference. Under the guidance of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology the Forum was organized by a number of reputable Chinese organizations including Chinese Institute of Electronics and the Chinese Chief Information Officers Union. The program covered topics like Mobile Computing, Big Data, Cloud and Security and demonstrated that issues facing CIOs are truly global.

At the forum CIONET and Chinese Chief Information Officers Union signed a “Strategic Cooperation Agreement”. Both organizations aim to improve the position of the Chief Information Officer through knowledge sharing in all sorts of manners like conferences, training, research and publications. As the challenges of the CIO are truly global as the Forum made clear and as the CIOs of Europe as well China are interested to know more about each other’s experience and vision, setting up a strategic partnership seemed like an obvious choice. The basic principles of the agreement are "Equal, Voluntary, Mutually beneficial”. The Agreement, which serves as a framework agreement, is the guidance document of long-term cooperation for both parties, and also the fundamental document for related contracts in the future. The Agreement was signed by Camille Zahara, member of the management team of the Chinese Chief Information Officers Union and Frits Bussemaker, Liaison International Relations CIONET.

The organizers of the World CIO Forum have demonstrated great hospitality to their guests who were able to experience with great pleasure the local culture and cuisine. The highlight was no doubt the visit to the world famous Terracotta army just outside Xi’an city where the we even met one of the farmers who discovered the army.