Speakers

Valérie is the Editor-in-chief of Smart Business, a magazine (and website) specialised in B2B technology. Valérie is a regular keynote speaker at events, and loves hosting a good, heated debate. As a member of the European AI Alliance, Valérie is passionate about AI and Machine Learning. In her articles, she focuses mostly on the socio-economic and ethical implications of disruptive technologies, a theme she cares deeply about.

Hassan Al Hilou started out as the youngest entrepreneur of Belgium where he received recognition from the media, royalties and policy makers. At 19 years of age, he is a serial entrepreneur, strategic diversity advisor, keynote speaker and author, He has spoken as a successful entrepreneur at the European Commission, Council , multinationals, universities and TED event and given a voice to youngsters in the media and international companies. Hassan is also active in different boards where his added value is the fresh perspectives about innovation, strategic change and diversity.

Dierk is passionate about big data and analytics. When he first started at the Federal Bureau of Finance, he was responsible for data mining processes for 5 years. After that, he started a new function within the bureau; as a consulting Senior Data Scientist, giving policy expertise and support tot he Bureau. Dierk is a regular speaker at international events.

Joey is a strategic growth consultant who’s always ready to push the needle. As a digital native who has worked on a wide range of digital growth and innovation projects for global organisations such as Google, Phillips, and startups such as VRTL; Joey is always enthusiastic to share his knowledge, learn from others, and tell his story. That’s why he can sometimes be found at Tilburg University as a guest lecturer.

Nick Boucart is a mentor, coach and regular speaker on topics like Cloud, SaaS, Data Driven Product Management and Software Engineering, working at Sirris. He’s an interim CTO for a number of startups and scaleups. In his spare time, he teaches kids how to code as a CoderDojo volonteer.

Aron is corporate affairs officer for Samsung Benelux, a world-leading technology company. Working on a broad range of communication projects for Samsung, ranging from public affairs, CSR and PR. Aron has an expertise in analyzing the impact of technology in our society, with a background in social and political sciences. He currently focuses on the societal impact of 5G.

An initial track in Academia, in an Engineering faculty, taught Yves that the industrial world suffered from multiple challenges. While performing Root Cause Analysis projects on various failures, it became apparent that most disturbances, stops or failures were the result of simply not paying enough attention to the installation while operating it. This is a frustrating situation and based on this experience Yves launched the Spin-Off company Zensor, using some of the knowhow developed while investigating these issues. Another part of the PhD work also found its path to the market when recently he co-founded a second Spin-Off startup, CellSine, looking to revolutionise drug discovery. Today has an operational role as CEO of Zensor, board member at CellSine and still holds a part-time professor position at VUB to stay in touch with relevant fundamental developments.

Robert is currently the overall Capgemini Invent leader for Belgium and Luxembourg. Robert has more than 25 years of experience, with a focus on the banking and insurance sector. He has participated in several large projects such as the set-up of a private bank, the merger and acquisition of a Belgian bank, the pan European back-office design of a bank insurer. He has been designated administrator by the Belgian Luxembourg Kaupthing Bank in Belgium and restructured the bank. He is also Member of the European Board of The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP). Robert is also professor of Management at the KU Leuven.

Michel Van Bellinghen, Master of Laws (UCL), started off at the university in 1990 as a researcher and joined the Belgian regulator for electronic communications BIPT in 1997. From 2003 until 2009 he was nominated Member of the BIPT Council for the first time. As supervisor of the legal department of the regulator during a number of years, he ensured the successful completion of various held mobile auctions of radio frequencies. In January 2017 he was assigned Chairman of the BIPT Council. During his presidency there was further opening of the cable infrastructure and the fiber network. The next big challenge is the auction of the radio frequencies necessary for the rollout of 5G in our country.

Véronique is a Customer Advisor at SAS, and a true data science enthusiast. In her job, she passionately helps companies to envision and prepare for an AI-driven future, embrace the power of data science to support intelligent decisioning, and discover the real value in their data. Before she joined SAS, she graduated as Doctor in Business Economics at the KU Leuven with the department of Information Management and Decision Sciences under prof. dr. Bart Baesens. Her Ph.D is oriented towards the development of fraud detection frameworks and solutions from a data science perspective. She is co-author of the book “Fraud Analytics Using Descriptive, Predictive, and Social Network Techniques: A Guide to Data Science for Fraud Detection”.

Dimitri Schuurman is the Team Lead of the Business model and User Research Team at imec.livinglabs. He holds a PhD and a Master’s degree in Communication Sciences from Ghent University in Belgium. Together with his imec colleagues, Dimitri developed a specific living lab offering targeted at entrepreneurs in which he has managed over 100 innovation projects. He is also active in the International Society for Professional Innovation Management (ISPIM) and in the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) as a living labs specialist. His main interests and research topics are situated in the domains of open innovation, user innovation, and innovation management.

Fourteen years ago Xavier Dekeyster founded DX-Solutions. His goal? Preparing companies for the digital world of tomorrow and everything related to that. Xavier Dekeyster likes to describe himself as a born entrepreneur with a crazy touch. “I’m no Steve Jobs, but every entrepreneur needs to be a bit visionary”, says Xavier.

In the meantime we’re almost halfway into 2019 and we’ve expanded into a nice SME with about 20 specialised employees. Our revenue also increased noticeably: the past three years it increased by a stunning 450%. In addition Xavier also founded two spin-offs which he manages in-house completely.