Sirus Connects 2026

The use of image and video data within organisations and governments

Jelle and Stefaan demonstrate how Sirus, together with organisations, cities and local governments, deploys image data to replace manual, repetitive work with automatic annotation and computer vision. Through concrete cases, they discuss architectural choices, the buy-vs-build trade-off, and the challenges around trust, privacy and adoption that arise in every digital transformation.

Stefaan obtained his PhD in Industrial Engineering: Computer Science at Ghent University, focusing on LLMs, machine learning, and big data. At Sirus, he builds AI solutions for extraction from policy documents, metadata enrichment, intelligent search tools, and computer vision for detection and monitoring in operational environments.

Stefaan Vercoutere

Computer Vision Engineer, Sirus

Jelle completed his PhD at Ghent University in 2023, researching multimodal data (photos, video, GPS) to improve safety in cycling races. At Sirus, he helps clients use (video) data to enhance citizen safety and business performance.

Jelle De Bock Computer Vision Engineer, Sirus

One orchestrator to aspire them all

Beyond frontend and backend: modern full stack in one repo

A live code tour through a modern full-stack application built from microservices running locally with .NET Aspire. Jakob shows how to make components in different technologies (Node.js, .NET, Redis, Postgres) work together and zooms in on the AI tier with LLM gateways and MCP servers. On the Aspire dashboard, you visualise traces of agents and LLM calls alongside OTel metrics — everything in one view.

After retraining during the COVID-19 pandemic, Jakob caught the Microsoft bug through the open-source project MudBlazor. Since then, he has closely followed developments in .NET and Blazor. In 2025, he joined the Sirus team after several years of experience on a variety of .NET projects. Outside of software, he spends his time on above-average homemade pizzas and renovating his home.

Young man with curly hair and glasses wearing gray t-shirt smiling at camera against dark tiled wall background

Jakob Sorgeloos

Software Engineer, Sirus

Introduction to Linked Data & Data Spaces

What, why, how?

Gert De Tant

CEO Sirus

Citizen Development in the Age of AI: The Technical Governance Blueprint

Jan is co-founder of SirusAI and guides organisations in scaling AI adoption and citizen development. With 20+ years of experience in digital transformation, he previously built data and AI organisations at Oracle, StepStone and Bricsys (Hexagon). He combines strategic advice with hands-on work on the modern AI stack (LLMs, Copilot Studio, Power Automate, n8n).

Jan Syssauw of Sirus AI in navy suit with crossed arms and glasses,

Jan Syssauw CEO/AI Strategist, SirusAI

Kristof is M365 Consultant and Competence Lead with 20+ years of experience in Microsoft technologies. His focus is on M365, SharePoint Online, Power Platform, Azure and governance — primarily within records and information management for the public sector, European institutions and regulated environments.

Portret van Kristof - Competence Lead van het M365 team bij Sirus.

Kristof Boschman

M365 Consultant & Competence Lead, Sirus

Agnostic Integration Patterns

Abstracting your integration with Dapr

Cloud-native goes deeper than adopting managed services. Tim shows how to build truly infrastructure-agnostic integrations with Dapr and API management — from synchronous service-to-service communication to asynchronous event-driven workflows. Familiar patterns are revisited through a modern, abstract lens, yielding flexible integrations that are portable, resilient and independent by design.

Tim is an Enterprise Solution Architect with a strong focus on modern application architecture and integration in distributed systems. He designs scalable, future-proof solutions that are not only cloud-native but truly infrastructure-agnostic. With hands-on experience in cloud, on-premises and hybrid environments, he specialises in applying proven integration patterns via tools such as Dapr and API management to decouple systems from the underlying infrastructure.

Tim Langens

Solution Architect, Sirus / FOD Binnenlandse Zaken

Linked Data: From Zero to Hero

How do you start with Linked Data as a beginner? A guided tour through the Linked Data ecosystem from Thomas’ personal perspective: YouTube playlists, tutorials, tooling on GitHub, playgrounds and the sometimes well-hidden resources that turn out to be genuinely useful. A practical quick-start guide for anyone who — just like he once was — has no idea where to begin.

Thomas is a Data Engineer at Sirus and actively contributes to tooling within a Linked Data research project. When he joined Sirus, “Linked Data” meant nothing to him — that self-study journey now forms the foundation of his talk.

Thomas Carsten

Data Engineer, Sirus

From Import to Direct Lake: Storage Modes in Power BI Explained

A deep dive into the storage modes within Power BI — Import, DirectQuery, Dual, Hybrid Tables and Direct Lake — and their impact on performance, scalability, governance and cost. Saar focuses on the practical trade-off: when do you choose which mode and why? Using realistic scenarios, you will learn how Direct Lake changes the rules in the Fabric era.

With more than twenty years of experience in Business Intelligence within the Microsoft ecosystem, Saar helps organisations derive value from their data. Her strength lies in translating business objectives into sustainable data solutions — from requirements and architecture to an executable data strategy. She often acts as a bridge between business and technical teams. Her extensive experience with Microsoft BI, Power BI and Microsoft Fabric makes her exceptionally well placed to explain design choices within modern analytics environments.

Saar Gillis BI Analyst / Architect, Sirus

Topic to follow

Steven

Building a Linked Data Space with AI and Human in the Loop

Data Spaces promise sovereign, interoperable data exchange — but in practice friction arises around identity, trust, data modelling and exchange. Brecht, Martijn and Stefaan explain how they addressed these layers with Linked Data Event Streams, SPARQL, Named Entity Recognition & Linking, MCP and Verifiable Credentials. An honest account of choices, pitfalls and human-in-the-loop AI annotation. For data engineers, developers, architects and analysts.

Brecht is a driven and pragmatic LD expert with a passion for exchanging linked data. Coming from a research background, he works with domain experts to describe datasets in a machine-readable way according to standards, and builds architectures to expose those datasets within applications — primarily within (local) governments and cultural organisations.

Brecht Van de Vyvere

LD Expert, ABB/VMM

Stefaan obtained his PhD at Ghent University on LLMs, machine learning and news recommender systems. At Sirus, he translates that expertise into AI solutions for clients: automatic information extraction, metadata enrichment, intelligent search and analytics tools, and computer vision.

Stefaan Vercoutere

AI Expert, Sirus

Martijn Bogaert

LD Expert, ABB

Connecting the dots: from data strategy to real business impact

Every organisation wants to become data-driven, but few succeed. Sarah explains why technology alone never makes the difference: depending on your organisation’s maturity, you need to lay the right foundations across process, data, governance, technology, organisation and communication. With a focus on a handful of use cases that genuinely create value, and change management as the lever to drive adoption.

Sarah has 20+ years of experience in data, governance, innovation and transformation. As a bio-engineer with a master’s in marketing management, she combines analytical depth with people-centred leadership. She has guided data transformations at Vandemoortele, Agristo, Ardo, Daikin Europe, VITO and P&V Verzekeringen, in roles that bridge strategy, governance and the shop floor. Certified Change Manager (Prosci ADKAR) and Business Process Manager — and has experienced transformation both as an internal data manager and as a consultant.

Sarah Hindryckx Data Strategy Consultant, Sirus

Keeping your solutions simple and how AI can help

Simple is harder than complex

Complexity often creeps in through multiple channels: limited domain knowledge, over-engineering, FOMO on new tech, chasing silver bullets. Robin takes you through the pitfalls from twenty years of experience and shows how to make simplicity a conscious choice. He also demonstrates how AI becomes a concrete ally — for describing existing behaviour, refactoring proposals, option trade-offs and tests. Practice-oriented for developers and tech leads.

Robin is a solution architect with more than twenty years of experience in software development. He has worked in complex domains — from payroll engines and flexible remuneration to pensions and the energy sector — and has built deep expertise in the .NET ecosystem, from legacy integrations to modern Azure solutions. Practical, honest and directly applicable — with an eye for maintainability and the reality of the workplace.

Robin De Boom Solution Architect, Sirus / Robocom

Towards FAIR data: building a self-service platform focused on maturity and transparency

A pragmatic approach with Microsoft Fabric, dbt and an integrated data catalog

Many organisations want FAIR data and self-service analytics, but do not know where to start. Timothy shows how to grow in data maturity step by step, with transparency as the first foundation. Using a practical case, he explains how data is centralised in Microsoft Fabric, transformations are managed with dbt and metadata becomes visible through a data catalog — not as an end goal, but as a realistic growth path.

Timothy helps organisations future-proof their data architecture. He designs scalable data platforms in which self-service, governance and data quality go hand in hand, working daily with Microsoft Fabric, dbt and data catalog tools. One principle is central to his approach: data must not only be available, but also understandable, reusable and trustworthy — which is why he strongly advocates the FAIR principles within organisations.

Timothy Callemein

Data Consultant, Sirus

Real time data IoT for public organisations using open-source components

Hannes Dendoncker

Practical security in the modern threat landscape

The threat level is rising and NIS2 obliges organisations to sharpen their cyber resilience. But NIS2 and the CyberFundamentals framework often provide insufficient guidance to make this achievable in practice. Joeri lifts a corner of the veil: how do you weave cybersecurity into your daily project work, and what does a concrete translation of such a framework look like?

Joeri has been active in IT for more than twenty years and has witnessed the cybersecurity threat grow exponentially. As a software architect at the City of Antwerp, he helped support recovery after the 2022 cyberattack — and experienced first-hand that the theory of security best practices does not translate to practice by itself. At Sirus, he applies those lessons within data projects and helps translate the legal obligations of NIS2 into concrete project work.

Joeri Sebrechts Software Architect, Sirus

Fabric Architecture, Capacity Optimization & Embedded Analytics

Young man with tousled blonde hair smiling in grey Sirus t-shirt against dark tiled wall background

Thomas DV

What to expect?

Program

Welcome