CIONET Belgium

Belgium 28-5-26 All Members Physical english

Security by Design: From Noble Intention to Reality

The Reality Check We have all seen the "noble intentions" of Security by Design crumble under the weight of deadlines and constant overload. Abraham Lincoln allegedly said, "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe". We all know what he meant, but in reality, we rarely spend enough time planning and tend to dash forward into execution. It is a story familiar to every CIO and CISO: A project starts with the best of intentions, but somewhere between the first architectural drawing and the final release, things go off course: Too many compromises were made, there wasn’t enough time or funding, the product owner shuffled priorities, requirements weren’t sufficiently validated, testing got squeezed, the security and/or architecture teams involved too late. Recognition is the first step; solving it together is the second. Today’s Mandate In the current landscape of GDPR, NIS2, DORA and the Cyber Security Act, "noble intentions" are no longer sufficient or acceptable: The financial reality: Fixing issues during the design phase is way more cost-effective than retrofitting patchy solutions after go-live. The regulatory stick: compliant policies on paper are no longer enough; they need to be lived, evidence needs to be provided and, given potential penalties, security and accountability are now firmly on the agenda of boards of directors. Why Join This Working Session? This isn't a "sit and listen" event; it is a working session among equals. Learn from the masters: Hear from organisations that really made progress and are now reaping the benefits of “Security by Design”. Consult your peers: Leverage the collective experience of Belgium's top CISOs to ask the questions you were previously afraid to ask. “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" exchange: Learn from the mistakes made by others, steal the tips and tricks of experts and distil your own winning formula. Join our circle, register for this event !

Belgium 2-6-26 Invitation Only Virtual english

The Self-Healing Infrastructure: Designing automation that prevents failure without creating blind spots

Automation was supposed to make infrastructure predictable. Systems would detect anomalies, resolve issues, and learn from every incident. And for a while, it worked: fewer tickets, faster recovery, better uptime. Until something broke silently, and no one noticed. The system had learned how to fix itself, but not how to explain what it did. That’s the new paradox of modern operations: The more autonomous your infrastructure becomes, the less visible it is. And when reliability depends on AI-driven logic, trust becomes the main failure point. Who monitors the machine that monitors everything else? At what moment does “self-healing” turn into “self-hiding”? So how do you build automation that keeps humans in the loop without slowing response? How do you set the right limits before systems act faster than people can intervene? And what skills do operations teams need when they’re managing learning, not just code? Let’s talk about what’s really changing in infrastructure operations: new accountability, new transparency, and the boundary between automation and control. A closed conversation for those designing systems that recover gracefully and stay explainable when they do.

Belgium 2-6-26 Invitation Only Physical english

Federated Data Consumption

Federated Data Consumption, Unified Meaning How do we keep one semantic contract across platforms, tools, and teams? “Hybrid by default” is the normal situation for most companies: SaaS, operational databases, APIs, multiple clouds, legacy platforms. And even though the intention is to simplify, it often leads to chaotic data consumption that goes everywhere. Trusting and accessing the right data becomes a challenge, especially when there is no consensus on what the data actually means. FTE, Customer, Revenue, Risk, Order… definitions drift across domains and tools, and you end up with duplicated pipelines, fragile integrations, and endless reconciliation. Let’s challenge that. With AI now sitting on everyone’s agenda, the need for basic data sanity is not optional anymore. If teams want to scale analytics, automation, and AI safely, we need a way to consume data across the estate while keeping meaning consistent. We need to decide where semantics live, how they’re maintained, how governance and security travel with the data, and when caching is a smart optimisation versus just another copy that nobody owns. So how do we enable cross-estate consumption that scales? Do we keep rebuilding the same logic five times? Do we force every team to learn a new dialect for every platform? Or do we finally agree on a shared semantic contract and make it usable across the enterprise?

May 26, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Virtual english

The Career Path of the Cloud Engineer: From system builder to strategic enabler of digital scale

The cloud engineer’s world keeps expanding. It started with provisioning and automation, but now it touches everything: resilience, security, cost, and even business continuity. What used to be a back-end function has become one of the most visible roles in digital operations. Yet with that visibility comes pressure: constant evolution, constant firefighting, and very little time to step back and ask, “Where is this career actually going?”

June 2, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Virtual english

The Self-Healing Infrastructure: Designing automation that prevents failure without creating blind spots

June 9, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Virtual english

From Dashboards to Decisions: Restoring alignment, ownership, and confidence in enterprise reporting

Data availability keeps growing, but decision-making often feels slower. Every function builds its own dashboards, metrics multiply, and reports begin to contradict each other. What was meant to improve transparency now creates confusion. The problem is not access to data but alignment on interpretation.

Cyber Circle

CIONET’s Cyber Circle: a new three-event programme exclusively focusing on the most urgent, complex, and high-impact challenges in cybersecurity today. Launched in 2026, this initiative brings together CISOs, CIOs, and senior IT executives with a strong interest in cybersecurity for three curated gatherings each year. As part of CIONET’s trusted executive community, the Cyber Circle provides a confidential, peer-driven environment to exchange insights, share real-world experiences, and address evolving cyber threats. Each session is designed to foster strategic dialogue, strengthen resilience, and elevate cybersecurity as a core driver of business value.

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.

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 !

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.