Lightning Talks

Suyin Aerts, a former professional ballet dancer and actress, transitioned to an unconventional path by joining her partner’s company, X-Treme Creations. This company specializes in designing, producing, and implementing visual marketing materials for various projects. Suyin’s accolades include the Talent Award of Women in Marketing and Communication (2012) and the Networker of the Year Award in Belgium (2016). As a female entrepreneur, she balances her professional life with a freelance career as a multilingual presenter and journalist for television (Kanaal Z/Canal Z) and event moderator. In 2019, she received the Wintrade Award for Women in the Media (sponsored by Microsoft). With a master's degree in industrial business policy, diverse marketing courses, and an International Trade degree from the International Chamber of Commerce, Suyin remains committed to expanding her vision, knowledge, and creativity. She also earned a digital transformation degree from Vlerick Business School in 2020. In April 2022, Suyin published her first book, “Time for the Creative Generalist” (NL) through LannooCampus. This same publishing house launched her second book called 10 Quintessential Questions, released in English on the importance of asking the right questions and the flow of an interview.

Océane Dieu graduated summa cum laude from Ghent University with a master's degree in law in 2021. Her thesis on cybercrime and terrorism earned the award for best thesis from the Coordination Unit for Threat Analysis (OCAD), and she went on to deepen her expertise in both fields with a second master's degree in the United Kingdom. Océane began her legal career as a trainee lawyer at Stibbe in Brussels, where she joined the corporate criminal law team. In June 2024, she moved to VS Advocaten to further develop her practice in criminal law alongside her interests in cybercrime and human rights. Driven by her interest in the cyber domain, she graduated in 2024 with the Executive Master's in Cybersecurity Management at Solvay Brussels School of Economics & Management. She is currently completing a further programme at the Université Libre de Bruxelles devoted to the ethical study of AI and emerging technologies.

Laurène Kaya is a Senior Consultant in cybersecurity at Wavestone Belgium. She specialises in cybersecurity governance, with expertise in cyber maturity assessments and cyber awareness initiatives, and a strong recent focus on NIS2 compliance. Laurène supports organisations in structuring and steering their cybersecurity efforts within regulatory and operational contexts. Building on this experience, she is currently leading a study on cloud governance and sovereign cloud, exploring Belgian organisations’ expectations and needs in this area.

Sander Noels is Co-founder and CTO of Enoki, a company building a next-generation defence system for AI applications. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Ghent University, where he conducted research at the intersection of machine learning and real-world applications. During his doctoral work, he gained hands-on industry experience as a data scientist at Silverfin, bridging academic research and practical AI deployment. Today, he focuses on advancing the security and robustness of AI systems, helping organisations safely deploy AI in production environments.