Alumni Week: What if Europe sets its own IT future?
Tuesday 6 October | 18:00-22:00 | Centrum voor Veiligheid & Digitalisering, Wapenrustlaan 11, Apeldoorn
- Date
- 6 October 2026
- Time
- 18:00 -22:00
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Programme
18:00–18:15: Walk-in
18:15–18:25: Opening speech by Center for Security and Digitalization
18:25–18:50: What’s at stake: Europe’s struggle to safeguard its autonomy and values by Kristina Irion and Machiel van der Wal
18:50–19:15: How Europe could reclaim control over cloud by Andreas Baur
19:15–19:45: Break
19:45–20:10: How Europe could reclaim control over cyber security by Martijn Dekker
20:10–20:35: How Europe could reclaim control over AI (speaker on behalf of CVD)
20:35–21:00: Interactive panel discussion: questions by moderator and audience
21:00–21:10: Wrap up, thank you by CVD
21:10–22:00: Drinks
Speakers
Martijn Dekker is Professor by Special Appointment in Information Security at the University of Amsterdam. His research focuses on information security governance, decision making under uncertainty, security automation and the application of information theory to cybersecurity. In addition to his academic role, he serves as senior executive and Chief Information Security Officer at ABN AMRO Bank, with more than 25 years of experience shaping cybersecurity strategy. He is also member of the advisory council of Dutch Statistics (CBS).
Kristina Irion is Associate Professor at the Institute for Information Law (IViR) at the University of Amsterdam. At Amsterdam Law School, she is Director of the Academic Excellence Track (AcET), Head of Studies for law in the interdisciplinary Bachelor's programme Politics, Psychology, Law and Economics (PPLE) and Chair of the Committee for Ethics and Scientific Integrity. She is a lecturer in the Advanced LL.M. in Technology Governance, the LL.M. Informatierecht and a guest lecturer at the University of Lucerne. She is a member of the governing board of the Amsterdam Center of European Research (ACES).
Andreas Baur is an external PhD candidate at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR). He pursues a PhD on the Politics of the Cloud supervised by Prof Dr Marieke de Goede and Prof Dr Thomas Poell. Andreas is a research associate at the research area Society, Culture and Technological Change at the International Center for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities (IZEW), University of Tübingen, Germany. He studies the complex interplay between IT infrastructures and politics/society with a focus on issues of power, autonomy, privacy and technology ethics. Andreas has been working on several projects on (security) infrastructures, privacy and digitalisation funded by the EU, the German Ministry of Education and Research and others.
Machiel van der Wal is a consultant, privacy expert, and award-winning researcher. He currently works as a consultant at Privacy Company in the field of digital data security. In 2024, he won the Brinkhof Internet Thesis Prize for his Master's thesis in Information Law at the University of Amsterdam. In this winning thesis, he demonstrated that the government's nationwide cloud policy inadequately protects government data against the legislation of countries outside the EU (such as the US). Before obtaining his Master's degree in Information Law, he studied Complex Systems Engineering and Management at TU Delft.
Boudewijn Haverkort is the Dean of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Twente, a position he has held since October 2024. He has an extensive academic background, previously serving as Dean of the Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences from January 2019 to August 2024, and as a full professor in Design Analysis Communication Systems at the University of Twente from 2003 to 2018. He also held a professorships at RWTH Aachen (Germany) and was scientific director of the public-private Embedded Systems Institute in Eindhoven (which has become a part of TNO under his leadership). Boudewijn also served as chairman of the national public-private research program Commit2data, on big data analysis and its applications. Lately, his interest has focussed on the impact digitalisation and AI on society; does the digital dream we once had really deliver?