The year that made us more resilient

Wellness gurus say that the only thing that matters is the present, that the past will not return, and the future does not exist. Clearly, many of us hope that what happened in 2020 in healthcare will not return. And if this healthcare crisis has taught us anything, it is that the future of everything - people, companies or entire markets - is at the mercy of sometimes uncontrollable elements. Nothing is guaranteed and the "status quo" can change in totally unpredictable ways in just a few weeks. In reality, life is like that; covid has simply reminded us of that.

In any case, what is clear is that our capacity for resilience is more vital than ever (according to the R.A.E. resilience is the "capacity of a material, mechanism or system to recover its initial state when the perturbation to which it had been subjected has ceased"). It would be inappropriate to say that we at Barbara IoT have come out of 2020 stronger. No one has, since we are involved in a crisis of a global and unknown nature whose impact is hardly predictable. But I would venture to say that Barbara IoT is now more "Resilient", and that we are much better prepared to put the pedal to the metal as the world recovers from this blow.

All of this is due to a series of achievements that I would like to highlight:

First and foremost, the people. The new additions to the Barbara IoT team have fit perfectly into the company's culture, and make the "Product - Marketing - Sales" triangle work like a Swiss watch. Incidentally, these additions have ensured that we finally have gender equality in the office! Paula, Kike, Peter, Miren, María, Carmen and Ana, welcome. In Q1 2021 we will continue to expand the team, especially in our new offices in Bilbao and Valencia (please write to rrhh@barbaraiot.com).

The team has not only grown in the technical areas. With the closing of the investment round we completed in December, we have added three strategic partners to Barbara IoT's shareholding that will help sustain, consolidate and accelerate our expansion. GoHub, the investment arm of Global Omnium, a leading multinational company with a presence on four continents and more than seven million customers, has placed its trust in our vision of IoT and cybersecurity. The institutional funds Bizkaia Seed Capital and Basque Venture Capital Investment Fund, which support business development in the Basque Country, a key region for us due to its business fabric and technological investment, have also joined us.

It is in this region where, at the beginning of the year, we had the honor of being selected to participate in the Bind 4.0 industrial acceleration program, which allowed us to start working with large corporations such as the electric utility EDP or the mobility elements company Orona. With them we are undertaking projects with direct impact on a better operation and maintenance of their assets and a reduction of their cybersecurity risks.

Throughout the year, these companies have been joined by others, such as Grupo Cuerva, Idrica, Cellnex, or the Civil Protection Service of Bizkaia, which have also begun to benefit from secure digitalization through Barbara OS. Or Red Eléctrica and Prosegur, who selected us as finalists in their respective innovation challenges. All of them have trusted us in 2020, and have helped us to promote our product and increase our know-how, which was also echoed during the year by media such as El País, El Español or Business Insider.

We have decided to put part of our accumulated knowledge and experience into the whitepaper "CYBERSECURITY IN THE INDUSTRIAL IoT", which can be downloaded from our website. In it, we explore the state of Cybersecurity in the Industrial IoT, analyze which are the most important standards and regulations, and review what technical, economic and process recommendations should be followed. In short, information that we believe is relevant for companies that want to minimize the security risks inherent in the implementation of the Internet of Things.

With this, we close with this an inevitably convulsive year, but where adding effort, dedication and talent, we have managed to grow and meet all the goals we had set ourselves, leaving more resilient and prepared to continue advancing in 2021 at a steady pace.

Thank you all very much, happy holidays and good health!

David Purón, CEO‍

‍