POA: 3rd Industry summit on Data Product oriented architectures
Day 1: 16th of September 2026 from 8:30 AM to 6:00 PM
Day 2: 17th of September 2026 from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM
We are excited to announce the third edition of the Industry Summit on Data Product-Oriented Architectures (POA), taking place on September 16–17, 2026, in Antwerp!
The use of computing and digital infrastructures has undergone various iterations of centralized/ decentralized/ federated architectures over the last few decades. New use cases, technologies and architectural patterns appear to emerge almost constantly in industry as organizations try to get value from their data assets.
The Industry Summit on Data Product Oriented Architectures brings together practitioners and researchers from top European companies and universities to discuss the state-of-the-art in federated data management in real-world, industry settings.
To this end, the summit aims to:
- Bridge the gap between academic research and industry practice in POA
- Present real-world challenges and insights from enterprise POA transitions
- Facilitate collaboration between non-competing organizations
- Advance the shared understanding of scalable, product-driven data strategies
Program
The Industry Summit features a variety of industry and research speakers from across Europe. The planned program structure is shown below. It is organized around two main topic areas: Enterprise Journeys for implementing Data Product Oriented Architectures for federated data management, and modern Data Product design and management.
The full program, including abstracts and speaker profiles, can be found here: the full program.
Location
The Main venue for the POA Summit is the international headquarters of DPG Media Mediaplein 1, 2018 Antwerp
At the end of the first day, we will walk to the Antwerp Manamgent School (AMS) for drinks at Boogkeers 5, 2000 Antwerp
Public Transportation
The main venue is right across from Antwerp Central Train Station, be sure to exit the station from the back exit, direction Mediaplein, which is on the other side from Koningin Astridplein. For more information, visit the Belgian Public Transportation Website.
By Car
The easiest way to ensure parking is to ask your hotel for advice. Around the city, there are various park and ride locations which offer parking for low prices or even free and which have good public transport connections to the city centre. For more information, check out https://www.parkerenantwerpen.nl/pr
Hotel Options
Antwerp Central Station (where the main venue is) can be easily reached by public transport from anywhere in Antwerp. Below we list some hotels that we have had good experiences with in the past.
How to book a hotel (please follow the steps in the right order)
- Go to the online booking tool: Antwerp Convention Bureau || Hotels || Online Booking
- First enter the code UAACB19 (in capital) and click Search
- Enter your arrival and departure dates, then click Search again
- You’ll see an overview of all available hotels and their Best Available Rate minus 10%, at that moment, along with the applicable conditions
- Select a hotel and book your room.
With thanks to the Antwerp Convention Bureau (ACB)!
Organising Committee
Local Organisation
Bas van Gils – Academic Chair
Bas is a driven and experienced consultant, trainer, and researcher. His is a managing partner at Strategy Alliance, which is also the home for his consulting activities. He is a professor at Antwerp Management school which is the home for his academic work. Bas is a board member of DAMA Netherlands and the Enterprise Engineering Institute. Key topics for his work are: digital transformation, enterprise architecture, and data management. Bas’s motto is: there is nothing more practical than a good theory.
Jan Verelst
Jan Verelst obtained his PhD in Management Information Systems from the University of Antwerp in 1999. Currently, he is a professor at the University of Antwerp, where he focuses on systems development methodologies and more specifically, Normalized Systems. This work focuses on studying the evolvability of modular structures in software architectures and other domains such as business processes and structured documents. He serves as chairman of the Management Information Systems Departement of the University of Antwerp and is professor at the Antwerp Management School as well as guest lecturer at the Czech Technical University in Prague. He is also co-founder of the spin-off software company NSX.
Sven van Egmond
Sven van Egmond serves as Head of Data at DPG Media. And is responsible for managing the Data platform, Tracking platform, Data architecture and Data governance. DPG is a first mover when it comes to the adoption of data mesh.
International Committee Members
Stefan Driessen
Stefan Driessen is a researcher whose work focuses on data product design. His work combines academic rigour with industrial practice and has been validated in several companies in Western Europe. After finishing his PhD, he joined ABN AMRO Bank, where he now works as an Enterprise Data Strategy Advisor.
Bernhard Mitschang
Bernhard Mitschang is professor for Database and Information Systems and head of the department ’Applications of Parallel and Distributed Systems’ that is part of the Institute of Parallel and Distributed Systems at the Universität Stuttgart, Germany. Both research and teaching spectra of his department cover on one hand data-intensive applications ranging from business applications to engineering systems and on the other hand fundamental data management techniques, data analytics as well as scalable data processing architectures.
Holger Schwarz
Holger Schwarz is a professor of computer science at the Institute of Parallel and Distributed systems of the University of Stuttgart. His research focus is on the comprehensive management and efficient processing of huge datasets, e.g. in data warehouses, data lakes and data meshes, as well as the modelling and management of corresponding metadata. Furthermore, he is interested in improving analytic processes, e.g., by using advanced methods for data preprocessing and advanced analytics algorithms.
Marco Tonarelli
Originally from Italy, he began his studies in Computer Science and Engineering in Genoa. He continued his studies with a master’s degree at Politecnico di Milano in Artificial Intelligence and Big Data. He moved to the Netherlands for my master’s thesis at NXP Semiconductors. After obtaining his master’s degree, he started a Ph.D. at TU/e – JADS in data governance and engineering, in collaboration with NXP Semiconductors.
Contact
For any questions regarding the program please reach out to Bas van Gils at bas.vangils@ams.ac.be
For questions about the practical organization, please reach out to Bas van Gils at bas.vangils@ams.ac.be
For general questions about the POA Summit, reach out to Stefan Driessen at s.w.driessen@jads.nl
