- June 28, 2022
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On December 7th at LuxExpo the Box, more than 500 people attended the 15th edition of IT One Gala, organised by Farvest, which annually gathers the Luxembourg IT Community to highlight the most technological, innovative and inspiring projects that the country has to offer. After an insightful conference focused on the data economy and an enriching networking cocktail, the evening ended with a prestigious dinner and the much-anticipated Luxembourg ICT Awards' Ceremony.
After a 2020 edition organised in a digital format, ITOne
Gala, the largest networking event of the IT industry in the Grand Duchy, was
back in a physical format. Aiming at highlighting and sharing insights of some
of the most followed IT experts from the country, the audience shared views on
innovative projects and which technologies are redesigning the ecosystem
offering Luxembourg to be recognised as a digital nation.
“We are living in challenging times and Luxembourg as a
digital nation and a gateway to Europe is at the forefront of changes to build
sustainable technology and innovative future. IT companies have been precursors
in helping organisations step into digital transformation and more than ever
they are setting the pace since data has become the new oil ”, said Charlotte
Boutelier & Margaux Vetzel, Managing Directors, Farvest agency, as they
kicked off this 15th edition of the IT One Gala, which is a great opportunity
“to federate the IT community and to stay ahead of the trends”.
Mario Grotz, Director General for Industry, New
Technologies and Research, Ministry of the Economy, President, Luxinnovation,
then opened the conference "The data economy marathon". With the
increasing digitalization in all areas, we are witnessing a “tsunami of data
that has become the new oil”, explained Grotz, and Luxembourg is a “data
economy frontrunner” in the EU' with “a clear, credible and respected vision”.
The Grand Duchy participates in numerous international initiatives such as
Gaia-X and has established many partnerships in the sector. The Meluxina
supercomputer, one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe and the 4th
greenest in the world, is part of this dynamic.
Oxana Turtureanu, Co-Founder & COO, digitalUs,
Master of ceremonies, then invited experts to spotlight their projects and tell
the audience about their “innovation journey” .
It started with Yves Le Traon, Professor in Computer
Science - Systems and Software Reliability - Deputy Director of SnT,
delivering the first keynote speech entitled "Building a Data Science Lab
in a financial company". Le Traon described the key steps to build a data
science lab, using AI and Machine Learning as key enablers. First, the
preparation, where you need to work on concrete use cases thanks to data available.
Then you develop use cases in the lab and start to accumulate knowledge and
improve methodology and intern processes. “After a while, we are entering in a
continuous improvement loop where you can deploy and evolve“, Le Traon stated,
while financial companies are looking for personalised services, clear business
strategy and KPI, proper risk management and internal processes.
David Dab, National Technology Officer at Microsoft
Belgium and Luxembourg, then took the stage to address how to "Capture
the potential of the new model economy". According to him “data is even
better than oil as it can be used and reused”. With Machine Learning, a new way
of solving problems has emerged which has a huge value creation potential. But
to play a role in this new economy and its winners-take-all dynamics, you need
a lot of data and to be able to access it. By entering the race early, more
people use it offering better data and feeding models that become, with the
time, even better. You need to embrace cloud technology. In this new
environment, ensuring the protection of data AND its use is key. This is what
confidential computing technology enables. Confidential computing is the
technology of the future, which closes the encryption triptych (Data at rest,
Data in transit, Data in use), according to Dab.
The conference continued with a Q&A session, moderated
by Emilia Tantar, Chief Data and AI Officer at Black Swan LUX, President of
Luxembourg AI national mirror committee and delegate on AI standardisation in
the CEN CENELEC JTC 21 Strategic Advisory Group and ISO/IEC JTC1/SC 42 working
groups and Alexandru Tantar, Business Analytics Group Leader, Luxembourg
Institute of Science and Technology, Black Swan Lux Board Member.
The first questions were addressed to Jean-Christophe Witz,
CIO of Husky Injection Molding System by Alexandru Tantar. He was asked
about the "Factory of the Future" project of his company and how the
implemented system has allowed the complete digitisation of the process. He
mainly highlighted that digitisation “is a journey” both in terms of people and
infrastructure. It took two years to change the backbone of digital
infrastructure to enable digital transformation. To embark the team, you have
to “change the management process to enable people to understand the goals, to
know what you will gain”.
It was then the turn of Philipp Jäggi, CIO of
Laboratoires Réunis and CIO of the Year 2020, to answer some questions from
Emilia Tantar about the way he and his company answered a national and urgent
requirement during the Covid-19 crisis. What Philipp Jäggi wanted to underline
was how everyone in Laboratoires réunis was focused on a common goal and how
great things could be achieved when it happens, such as creating applications
from scratch in 4 weeks. He also listed three main factors of resilience: a
microservices architecture, a hybrid cloud architecture and good governance in
a broadest sense.
At the end of this Q&A session, the speakers met for a
round-table discussion to address some considerations on data and AI regulation
in Europe. For Philipp Jäggi, AI is both a danger and an opportunity, so it's
about finding the right balance. There is a need for regulation but at the same
time, you need freedom of exploring technology, a startup should not need a
year to be compliant”.
Moving forward with Fabrice Aresu, Chief Executive
Officer of LuxTrust, who highlighted the issues related to citizenship and
sovereignty in a Global Data Economy involved in the Gaia-X project. First of
all, Gaia-X is about “interlinking and data sharing” and it’s based on EU
values and standards. “Gaia-X is the GDPR of the cloud”, said Aresu. But Gaia-X
is not a European centric project. It aims to obtain better data insights and
quality in a transparent and user driven way. In the future, Gaia-X-labelled
services could emerge as a source of trust for the general public. “This
certification could be a commercial argument”, explained Aresu.
The last keynote session, presented by Ludovic Gilles,
Head of Department - Enterprise Sales, POST Telecom, was dedicated to “POST
and 5G, drivers of innovation and digitization in Luxembourg”. Above all, 5G
meets a need. With the constant growth of mobile data worldwide, the 4G network
will simply become congested within a few years. 5G means more capacity, less
energy use, higher speed, low latency and dedicated reliable service quality.
Gilles then outlined several concrete examples of 5G applications, from
autonomous cars to healthcare, to drones for emergency services, to mobile
banking, to smart city or the use of VR for surgical procedures. By the end of
his presentation, he invited professionals to explore "NEXT, a space
designed to promote creativity and innovation, in its premises in Cloche d'Or”,
a way to test and improve customer experience, push the limits of creativity
and challenge new concepts.
The evening continued with a networking cocktail, sponsored
by Kyndryl Luxembourg, that allowed the IT community to share a privileged
moment.
The event ended with the Luxembourg ICT Awards' Ceremony, introduced
by Marc Hansen, Luxembourg Minister Delegate for Digitalisation, and
moderated by Guy Benzeno, Founder, Center Stage. “This year, we have
witnessed real progress in the use of digital public services”, said minister
Hansen, welcoming the confidence of citizens in the digital tools made
available, as shown by the success of MyGuichet.lu application. Marc Hansen
took the opportunity of the IT One Gala to announce the launch of a new
platform in January 2022, Zesumme Vereinfachen (“Let’s simplify together”),
which “will enable the citizens to take part in the simplification and the
further development of administrative procedures”. The Minister also announced
the launch in the very near future of the GouvID app, where citizens will have
the possibility to use their Luxembourg electronic identity card together with
their smartphone to identify themselves to access online public services. On
the occasion of the ITOne Gala, Marc Hansen reaffirmed the government's
commitment to move towards a digital government in order to create a simple and
predictable framework for citizens and companies in their relationship with the
state. He took the example of the recent law making e-invoicing mandatory from
2022.
And the winners of the Luxembourg ICT Awards 2021 are:
INDIVIDUAL AWARDS
CIO of the Year (rewards an outstanding ICT leader
that, thanks to her/his vision, strategic skills and management/leadership
qualities, contributed to the performance of its company while meeting the
stakeholder's needs (clients, employees, shareholders) : Christian Kettmann
(CFL).
The CIO of the Year 2020, Philipp Jäggi, CIO at Laboratoires
officially passed the torch to his successor on stage and greeted this new
nomination.
Inspirational ICT Personality of the Year (rewards an
ICT personality for her/his entire career, her/his achievements, the lessons
learned and her/his efforts to inspire and share with her/his peers and future
generations): Jean Hilger (SnT).
Steve Breier, Director, Head of Finance & IT for the
Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce presented the trophy “After almost 31 years
at the Spuerkeess where the IT was a precursor to many fields including
electronic banking, the shared adventure of ICT Spring since 2010 and, finally
as another example, the creation of LUXHUB, it feels for him like a homecoming
to get back to education and research and it is a great pleasure to reward a
personality that inspire us and who is now bridging the gap between the FinTech
and the Research sector”.
TECHNOLOGIES & PROJECTS AWARDS
ICT Business Partner of the Year (rewards an ICT
provider that led and successfully implemented development, software and/or
hardware integration, or infrastructures projects, bringing real added-value to
its clients): SnT.
Telecom Innovation of the Year (rewards a local
telecom provider that develops and provides a telecom innovation which will
contribute to revolutionising the way companies leverage communications (Edge
computing, 5G, Everything-as-a-Service Model, User-Friendly API, Network
Optimization Using AI…): NTT.
Most Innovative ICT Training Programme (rewards a
training programme or initiative aiming at schooling actors of the ICT sector,
both in terms of hard skills and/or soft skills): WIDE.
Best use of AI & Data (rewards a company that
ingeniously and efficiently used artificial intelligence and/or data to conduct
an ICT project or implement new processes or tools): POST Luxembourg.
Digital Transformation Project of the Year (rewards a
digital transformation project that cleverly leveraged technology to improve a
company’s performance, and contribute to the enhancement of customer and/or
employee experience): Ministry of Education, Children & Youth.
ORGANISATIONS AWARDS
ICT Outsourcing Services Provider of the Year
(rewards a company providing an on-demand tech environment – Cloud, Managed
Services, BPO… – in order to unburden its clients of some tasks and functions):
Finologee.
Young ICT Revelation Company of the Year (new this
year, rewards a company, created less than 5 years ago, whose primary technology
aims to help established IT systems improve their operations and/or
functionality – or to flat out disrupt them): Cascade Lab.
More information : gala.itone.lu