David Ariens - Team Topologies Advocate
David Ariens - Team Topologies Advocate
David holds a Master's degree in Mathematical Engineering from the K.U. Leuven. To this date, he still teaches several courses on cyber security, data, and AI topics at two high schools and a university.
He was the industrial digitalization director at BASF Antwerp until 2022. In that role, he focused on building digital product teams. He started as a data scientist but quickly got passionate about Industrial Cyber Security, Data Platforms, digital operator tools, and more fun technical stuff. During this time, Willem and he laid the groundwork for what is now known as their IT/OT Cooperation Models, which is influenced by DevOps and TT.
Today, David is focusing on bringing real digital transformation to Manufacturing, Process, and Infrastructure companies. He co-founded The IT/OT Insider together with Willem in 2023. In 2025, they launched their ITOT.Academy.
You can reach David via:
Team Topologies Advocacy
The day OT systems got connected to IT systems, cooperation was needed. But what is cooperation? How do you describe it? Enter Team Topologies.
He used the concepts from this book for his 8 IT/OT Cooperation Patterns and later also in his IT/OT Cooperation field guide. He presented these concepts at the Enterprise Technology Summit, a conference organized by IT Revolution, he teaches them in his ITOT.Academy, and he is currently finishing his book.
