Impression of CIODAY2017

A word of welcome was given by Ronald Verbeek (director CIO Platform Nederland) and Rob Beijleveld (CEO ICT Media). After this introduction prof. Eric Bartelsman gave an extensive macro-economic analysis of the impact of digitalization on organizations. ‘It’s better to have lunch, than to be lunch’, was his advise. Make sure you’ve sorted out your digital business, to be flexible while dealing with market developments, otherwise you will be the prey.

Artificial intelligence dependent of data
Next speaker Eric Wesselman (partner at KPMG) gave a more personal touch while looking at the developments we have to deal with nowadays. He talked about how to live with three robots in your house. That appears to be very frustrating. Because artificial intelligence is dependent of the available quantity and quality of data. Robots with limited datasets aren’t capable to generate many useful solutions for everyday problems in and outside the house. There is still a lot to develop, before we can talk about real intelligent house assistants. Melih Yener (CTO of DXC Technology) gave an insight in the German Startup Autobah initiative of Plug and Play. Partners within this project are large German car manufacturers and other incubator format investors to develop new concepts for the car industry. 

After a round of debating with the usage of the tooling of menti.com, the next topic was safety. Olli Hyyppa (CIO of NXP) and Alexander Schlager (Verizon) gave their point of view about the developments of this topic of IT. Nowadays it is impossible for organizations not to invest in digital safety, but how to do this in a proper way is getting an increasingly touch job. Several tooling solutions can help you to gain insight about you status quo, but to execute standardized actions, like patching your systems, is also still very important to maintain, this is made very clear due to recent hack cases. 

Blockchain in practise
Blockchain was the next topic to talk about. The main technology is explained by Frans Kempen (IBM). Nicolas Buhmann (Maersk) presented a practical situation. It was about the import of products from Third World countries via the Port of Rotterdam. The implementation of blockchain could safe a lot of time, improve the legality of documents and the payment of taxes which must be paid back later in time. A very nice practical case. Only the IP-ownership seems to be a point of discussion. 

The not so much wrap up
The wrap up wasn’t a wrap up as it should be. A heavily emotional Diane Roark, former employee of the US intelligence commission in the House of Representatives, told her own experiences about how the Intelligence Commission in the US collects data from almost all possible sources. They don’t catch terrorists by using these methods, but they do possess the data for a unknow period of time. Risks for the personal freedom is a threat. Unfortunately she didn’t provide the audience with any perspective for action. A very tasteful dinner was served during the evening, alternated with a remark of Inge Knapen (Close the Gap) and Roy Budjhawan (ING), about the new Leap2 programme that was launced recently. The main goal of the programme is to invest in promising new African business models. 

CIODAY2017 'The big How'
Tuesday the 21^st of November 2017 the CIODAY2017 took place. A spectacular opening with a fire and lighting show. Marcel Krom (CIO PostNL and chairman CIO Platform Nederland) talked firmly to the organizations and CIO’s who aren’t quick enough with the necessary steps to take to compete in the digital society. It isn’t about convincing the board any more about why they have to change, or about what to do exactly. These questions should already have been answered some time ago. The only thing that needs to be done, is to discuss how the changes will get their shape and to apply. To drop down the line of your own business and go bankrupt is otherwise the only possible result. A panel of five CEO/CFO’s discussed about the necessity of change and the role of data. Data should even be an infrastructure according to the Boston Consulting Group, being a central base to develop insights and services. After the lunch break the break-out programme started with more than 40 subjects die be discussed in small groups. New insight occurred about for instance ‘technology trends’, ‘war on talent’ and ‘digital ecosystems’.

The afternoon programme was plenary introduced by Camilla van den Boom (Sturrm) on how to coach start- and scaleups. Also for this subject the same statement: the 'why' is not an issue any more, you have to work on ‘how’. In her system it is about making plans for each timeframe of 3 months, 4 weeks, 5 days and 8 hours: 3x4x5x8. Practical examples of companies that are developing rapidly are:

• Lightyear: developing a new generation of electrical cars,
• Fizyr (former Delft Robotics), develops deep learning modules for robots, and
• Picnic, de largest grocery without a brick shop. Recently this company gained €100 million of investments to finance the next round of developments.

Very inspirational stories, that mark that chasing a vision yields a lot of enthusiasm and big plans and also have a serious impact on the market.

CIO of the Year 2017 
Final part of CIODAY was the election of CIO of the Year 2017. Especially very exciting for our members Leo Brand (Vopak), Arthur Govaert (Radboudumc), Olli Hyyppa (NXP), Ton van Rhijn (CZ) and their teams. After a short presentation of each nominee and the thorough procedure of the election process,  the chairman of the jury Bernard van Oranje presented the winner: Bouke Hoving, CIO van KPN. Unfortunately no winner from our Association. There were six wonderful nominees, that all gave a very good impression of their team, their organization and their performances. Let them be an inspiration for everybody searching for examples of the ‘The Big How’.