The IT/OT Insider Academy
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Our IT/OT Academy Hall of Fame

These are the ones working where IT meets OT.

These are the ones who now mastered the language, the frameworks, the architectures.

The true practitioners, like you.

More about the Academy
Electrolux Group Pfizer BASF AstraZeneca Halifax Water John Deere Suez Anheuser-Busch InBev Johnson & Johnson FrieslandCampina Sadara Bayer AGL Energy GE Vernova Fujitsu OKE Sioen Ronal Group Colruyt Group
Databricks PwC Schneider Electric HiveMQ AVEVA Litmus Endress+Hauser HighByte Actemium Fraunhofer Teradata Novotek NTT DATA
Feedback from Arash Zolfaghari
Arash Zolfaghari Product Owner, Endress+Hauser
Feedback from Ferdinand Gabelmann
Ferdinand Gabelmann General Manager, Endress+Hauser
David and Willem cut straight through the Industry 4.0 buzz. At our Barcelona Innovation Summit they turned the 'UNS' concept from a slide-deck acronym into a practical blueprint our engineers and customers could start wiring the very next week. Their mix of strategic clarity and hands-on data-management tactics helped the attendees see how connectivity, governance and change management actually fit together.
Marc Olivé Torralba Industry 4.0 Strategy Director, AG Solution Group
Feedback from Will Knight
Will Knight VP Partnerships, Litmus
I recently completed the IT/OT Academy, and it was an incredible experience. Collaborating with engineers and automation experts on real-world challenges game me fresh insights that directly shaped my recent talk on overcoming data silos and driving digital transformation. Big thanks to David and Willem for creating such a valuable space to learn and connect. Highly recommend!
Jessica Dillon Channel Account Manager, Software Toolbox
The IT/OT Academy is a great resource for people who are trying to solve problems and build solutions in the real world overlap between IT and OT organisations and technologies. Refreshingly free from buzzwords and vendor hype it is by practitioners and for practitioners.
Adam O'Gorman Lead Architect - OT / IT Convergence, Stegra
We worked on a real-life use case of a company facing operational inefficiencies, which made the exercise feel relevant and hands-on. I especially valued the opportunity to collaborate with people from different industries and roles — from OT to IT — and to hear their perspectives. It really highlighted how complex OT/IT cooperation can be, with multiple steps and stakeholders involved in driving a successful project.
Vitorio Yosifov Business Discovery Specialist, HiveMQ
What sets the ITOT.Academy apart is the way professionals from different industries and varying levels of maturity openly share their experiences, creating practical insights I can use in my own journey to drive IT/OT convergence.
Thomas G IT/OT Architect, Suez
I recently attended the ITOT.Academy cohort with David Ariens and Willem van Lammeren. I can highly recommend this to anyone wanting learn more about better collaboration between IT and OT teams in the Manufacturing space. Thank you for a great course and looking forward to new courses hopefully in the near future.
Corné De Beer Technical Enablement Manager, AVEVA Select Benelux
Stepping into a new role in the IT/OT space, the IT/OT Academy was a fantastic experience to quickly get into the subject and understand the complexities in this area. It covered both the technological, organisational and human aspects when two different worlds meet. The content was well-structured and practical. The wealth of experience from the instructors, guest speakers, and participants was impressive and provided a great learning opportunity!
Linda Rothan-Cederberg Manufacturing Digital & IT Product Portfolio Manager, Electrolux Group
What an experience! During the last weeks I had the opportunity to attend the IT/OT academy of The IT/OT Insider. Packed with inspiring insights and lively interaction with many other participants, we were guided through the topic of bridging the gap between IT and OT in interactive sessions and practical experience reports. Many thanks to David and Willem for preparing and delivering such a hands-on and industry-relevant online course. I can highly recommend this course to anyone who wants to learn more about Industry 4.0, digitalization in a production context, and IT/OT integration. I am looking forward to what probably comes next! P.S.: Now I am well prepared to do more than just start my own cookie factory 🙂
Tobias Kutzler Teamlead, Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation
Life is about continuous learning, right? The past 6 weeks, I learned the language, architecture, and governance to push past "just a POC" and scale bigger & better with The IT/OT Insider. Grateful for the opportunity to join this course!
Stephanie De Smet Partner Manager EMEA, Litmus

We absolutely love it when we see our certificates and stickers being posted
(Yes, you get a physical certificate with a personal note :))

IT/OT Academy certificate shared on LinkedIn IT/OT Academy certificate shared on LinkedIn IT/OT Academy certificate shared on LinkedIn

The certificates posted by some of our earlier participants:

IT/OT Academy participant certificates IT/OT Academy participant certificates
The Industrial Platform Capability Map referenced in the blog and put together by David Ariens and the team at The IT/OT Insider is a great framework for thinking about deploying an enterprise ready solution. [..] Trying to solve these one at a time may seen intuitive but leads to an unmanageable mess of software applications and custom code piecing together what should be an enterprise platform that scales.
Will Knight VP Partnerships, Litmus
Recently, I discovered itotinsider.com and I am going through all of The IT/OT Insider podcast backlog. Normally I listen to podcasts in the gym, walking, in the car – but that doesn't work here, there is too much value and I need to make notes!!! I want to give a shout-out to the podcast content creators David Ariens and Willem van Lammeren – their interviews with industry leaders are full of golden nuggets. I have listened to some of the podcasts multiple times.
Mandeep Sidhu Consultant, Schneider Electric
David Ariens' latest article on Industrial Data Platform Capability Maps is a must-read for anyone tackling the complexities of Industrial DataOps. With a clear breakdown of the seven main capabilities—Connectivity, Contextualization, Data Quality, Data Broker & Store, Analytics, Visualization, and Data Sharing—David brings clarity to a space that's often overwhelming. Thank you, David, for your thought leadership in helping us all cut through the noise in IT/OT integration! 🙌
Tego Inc.
On our road-trip to the Pyrenees I binged your 12-part podcast series. Really solid content—keep it up! My wife and kids were sound asleep, so the tech depth was clearly high enough. 😉
Laurens Verstraeten IT/OT Data Architect, Boortmalt

Want to join the Hall of Fame?

Reserve your seat in the next public cohort or ask about a private Academy for your team.