CEO Pete Popov looks back on 2020
As we approach the end of December, it’s time to review a year that we will certainly remember for the rest of our lives. It hasn’t been easy, but all of us at Konsulko Group are still working hard, supporting the open source community and helping our customers build forward-looking products.
Even at the start of 2020, we knew this year would be different. The coronavirus was the talk of CES in January with some companies pulling out at the last minute, and everyone wondering what the global business climate would be in the months ahead.
By the time FOSDEM rolled around a few weeks later, it was clear the virus would disrupt commerce worldwide, and by the end of February, we had to cut short our presence at Embedded World because of new travel restrictions.
Then the world locked down completely. Since at Konsulko Group we all work remotely by design, we didn’t have to adjust our way of developing software, but as it did for everyone, we had to significantly change our face-to-face participation in embedded Linux, Yocto Project and other community events.
We taught ourselves to use video editing tools, and gave “virtual” presentations from our desks at the Embedded Linux Conference North America and Yocto Project Dev Day at the end of June, the virtual Automotive Grade Linux All Member Meeting in mid July, Linaro Connect in September, Virtual ELCE and Yocto Project Virtual Summit Europe at the end of October, and participated in the virtual Automotive Linux Summit the first of December.
In December, we also presented an AGL Webinar, Getting Started with AGL using Raspberry Pi.
Early in the year, we announced that we had become a Mender Authorized Referral Partner, and that important alliance has provided dividends to both Konsulko Group and our customers as the year progressed.
Konsulko engineers continued our series of technical blogs…
Helping Yocto Project work with Python 3
Getting Started with RAUC on Raspberry Pi
Building a DIY SOHO router, 18 months later
…and we posted six new videos of our presentations:
Building Containers with OpenEmbedded
Highly Scalable Yocto Project Build Automation
Security Hardening with OpenEmbedded / Yocto Project
Open Source License Compliance with Yocto Project
Demo: Using Rust with Yocto Project
Software Update Solutions for Yocto and OpenEmbedded
Still, we have all been touched by the physical and emotional toll of COVID-19. Two of our engineers have endured a bout with the virus (and thankfully recovered). Some of us have family, friends or acquaintances who have become seriously ill or even passed away. We can only hope the post-pandemic world is now in sight.
In the long run, the challenges that 2020 have brought us closer together in many ways, and hopefully taught us valuable lessons that will make us stronger in a better new year.
