Mobapi selected for ArianeGroup’s Start-up Challenge.
On 3 February 2020, a letter from ArianeGroup informed Vincent Reboul of Mobapi’s selection for its Start-up Challenge. Signed by the group’s chief technical officer, it invites us, in two weeks’ time, to six days around the space centre. A selection is not a certificate. It does mean having early answers to the questions any sensitive site raises.
ArianeGroup launched this challenge with Hello Tomorrow. Its starting point: many partner start-ups in France, none based near its launch base. Its aim: to build up the local ecosystem and encourage young companies to set up there. Sixty start-ups applied. Fifteen ArianeGroup experts sat on the juries, which selected five, in three categories. Mobapi is the only one of the five based in the French overseas territories.
The programme runs over six days, from 17 to 22 February. It includes a visit to the space centre and a launch, subject to confirmation. Then comes a full-day workshop, led by ArianeGroup experts and Hello Tomorrow, where each start-up will work with the group’s project leaders on use cases from its own field. Each will present its own at the end of the day, then, the next day, sum up its project for the chief technical officer and those in charge of innovation, facility management and the factory 4.0 project.
What we bring.
Our field: remote monitoring of industrial equipment. What we bring comes in two parts: a Mobapi.BOX, which collects data from connected objects and PLCs and sends it securely, then a single dashboard for all that data, whatever the manufacturer or the technology. With one simple argument: a team already on the ground.
What a sensitive site demands.
At a sensitive site, the first question is not about the dashboard. It is about what the unit is allowed to do. Our answer is a design choice: the Mobapi.BOX has read-only access to each piece of equipment and sends no commands. When the control network must stay isolated, the gateway separates the two networks and the control network stays cut off from the internet. Then comes the question of data. It is hosted on AWS in the Paris region, encrypted at rest and in transit, or on the operator’s own servers.
These questions are not specific to the space industry. A power plant or a factory asks them in the same terms.
