The third Connected Industry 4.0 Congress (Congreso de Industria Conectada 4.0) has by now made its name as a benchmark event dealing with industry’s great digital-transformation challenge, the state-of-the-art enabling technologies and success stories from the most impactful sectors.

The opening addresses were given by Reyes Maroto, acting Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, and Wonki Min, the Korean Vice-Minister of Science and ICT. The Spanish minster promised that the economy digitalization drive will be one of the main thrusts of the new legislature. She also highlighted the need of digital skillsets training for a global tackling of the digital transformation challenges of industry and society. South Korea’s Vice-Minister of Science and ICT brought out the importance of the border-spilling fourth-industrial revolution, the intelligent networks of which grant access to sporting, musical or financial content or any other type of services.

Afterwards, in the institutional discussion panel between Spain and South Korea, the Secretary of State for Digital Advance, listed the four challenges to be tackled in order to drive Spain’s economy and boost its innovation capacity: financing, talent, scalability and turning government into an enterprising public sector. In this debate the participants stressed the importance of public-private collaboration and the value of persons.

The rest of the day comprised several theme-based panel discussions in which the experts addressed aspects such as sustainability in the agrofood industry, the hydrogen-powered connected vehicle or asset-monitoring and -management as the new driving force behind industry.

Javier Zubieta, Marketing and Communications Manager of GMV’s Secure e-Solutions sector, participated in the Cybersecurity and Digital Trust panel discussion organized by the Spanish Association for Standardization and Certification (AENOR in Spanish initials). The main conclusion drawn from this debate was the crucial importance of raising awareness and spreading the word in order to close the digital divide, since all too many companies begin to take cybersecurity into account only after suffering an incident. It is therefore highly advisable to seek out a trusted cybersecurity specialist to work with, in order to gauge your business risks properly and mark out a secure path towards digital transformation.