ABC5
AI, Blockchain & Cybersecurity
ABC5 is a cross-domain training programme for people who need to understand how modern digital systems are built, trusted, and defended. Instead of treating AI, blockchain, and cybersecurity as separate silos, ABC5 helps participants understand how they interact in practice — across products, policy, infrastructure, and governance.
Why ABC5 exists
Technology work rarely stays in one domain. A team deploying AI still needs to think about security, identity, data integrity, and system trust. A policymaker working on digital governance cannot make good decisions with only surface-level technical understanding. ABC5 was created for that reality. It gives participants a structured foundation across three fields that increasingly shape the same systems, decisions, and risks.
Three domains, one programme
Artificial Intelligence
Participants explore how AI systems are developed, deployed, and governed — from data and models to tools, agents, and accountability. The goal is not only to understand what AI can do, but how to ask what a system is actually doing and what responsibilities come with using it.
Blockchain & Trust Technologies
This part of the programme covers cryptography fundamentals, consensus, smart contracts, digital identity, and tokenisation. ABC5 approaches blockchain as a family of trust technologies, not as a narrow conversation about speculation or markets.
Cybersecurity
Participants learn to think in terms of threat models, attack surface, secure design, and operational risk. Cybersecurity is treated as something built in from the start, not added at the end.
The intersection matters
What makes ABC5 different is not simply that it includes three topics. It is that it teaches the connections between them. Participants are encouraged to think across boundaries: how AI systems create new security risks, how trust infrastructure shapes digital identity, how governance decisions depend on technical realities, and how weak understanding in one area creates blind spots in another.
Who ABC5 is for
University and hogeschool students
For those building foundational literacy before entering research, industry, or public-facing technology work.
Technical professionals
For those already strong in one area who need a clearer grasp of the others as their work becomes more interconnected.
Policy and compliance practitioners
For those responsible for systems they may not have built, but still need to evaluate, govern, or regulate well.
Educators and trainers
For those teaching emerging technology and looking for a better integrated framework than isolated topic-by-topic delivery.
Training first, certification separately
ABC5 is a training programme. It builds cross-domain literacy and applied understanding, but it is not itself a formal certification. Formal credentials are issued separately through ISFRETIC, KBI's independent certification framework. ABC5 may provide relevant preparation, but competence is demonstrated through assessment rather than attendance.
How cohorts are run
ABC5 cohorts are typically opened when the right institutional or community partner is in place. This allows the format, depth, and examples used in the programme to be adjusted to the audience, rather than forcing every cohort into the same template. Some editions may be student-focused; others may be designed for professionals, educators, or partner organisations exploring a specific need.
Interested in ABC5?
If you are a student, educator, institution, or organisation in the Netherlands interested in a future ABC5 cohort, we would be glad to hear from you.