The opportunities that both phenomena have created are immense, but so are the risks for those who have not been paying attention. To remain on this economic train, which does not stop, today there’s no choice but to be entrepreneurial, or to learn non-stop.

This applies, at the same time, to each of us and to the territory in which we live. Biscay has evolved in just a few years from an economy based on steelworks and electricity to one of the world’s leaders in the automotive and renewable energy sectors. Hydrogen and biotechnology are the next big things that this territory doesn’t want to miss out on, in some cases, by reinventing century-old projects, such as Orbea and Garavilla; and, in others, creating new ones, such as H2Site and Biolan.

In particular, jobs for life are no more, as nowadays one must constantly reinvent oneself

Some do so by learning on a continuous basis so that their employers can count on them for roles that change over the years, and lately, even months. Others prefer entrepreneurship, a riskier path, in principle, but one that also offers multiple personal incentives having to do with creativity and the ability to excel.

The latter are the current heirs of yesterday’s explorers; the innovators and pioneers who have been building what Biscay’s today. Whether they are locals or foreigners who decided to settle here because of the opportunities to generate wealth. They are the key to the future, so it’s essential that we give them the recognition they deserve.

In Biscay there are around 400 newly-created technology businesses. These are called start-ups because they have just been born, and their objective is to grow very fast, with fierce ambition.

Some, such as Lookiero already have 300 employees, barely five years after its creation, thanks to the huge amounts of money that its sponsors, business angels or, in this case, investment funds, have put into it with the aim of multiplying it after its rapid sale to the highest bidder. Most are much more modest operations, but they always create what has rightly been called “quality employment”. In other words, young graduates who would otherwise have emigrated from Biscay, or who have come from other parts of the world to work and live in Bilbao.

I would like to tell you about a company that’s new but already so old that some would no longer call it a start-up. It’s a standout for many reasons: it emerged from a series of coincidences that a well-connected entrepreneur managed to weave together, grew despite all kinds of adversities, which could only be overcome by a team of optimistic people with an enormous capacity for sacrifice, and today it’s a leading company in its field worldwide, selling technology made in Biscay on multiple continents.

I’m talking about Biolan, a company found in 2006 by Asier Albizu, an agricultural engineer from Eibar who set up his base at the Bizkaia Technology Park. Albizu had worked in the Basque Government, where he discovered that Rioja Alavesa winemakers had a very serious problem when it came to measuring the quality of the grapes during their harvest and subsequent delivery to wineries. They did it by eye, which is generally not the best system in the world. The engineer listened to the winemakers and had an idea. Years later, he met a Chemistry professor who had invented a system, using gluconic acid and electrochemistry in biosensors, to carry out these types of measurements immediately.

Albizu quickly paired the need with technology and decided to get to work. Thus Biolan was born, with the additional sponsorship of a couple of universities and technology centres. It would soon also incorporate three business angels from Biscay: Mikel Urizarbarrena, the creator of the Panda antivirus; the Garavilla family, known especially for the Isabel brand of canned fish; and Lorenzo Mendieta, the man who invented gift promotionsat banks in the days of savings accounts and other fixed-term deposits. The Orza Fund, which invests in start-ups the money set aside for their pensions by Basque civil servants, and a large part of the workers in Gipuzkoa, also put money in over time.

With this funding it was possible to develop the technology, and everything indicated that Biolan was going to be a successful company. But this was not the case. The technology had more flaws than was desirable, and the wine world did not receive Albizu’s invention with much enthusiasm. Its lack of customers led to a downward spiral in revenues, and deficits, which almost forced Biolan to close. But once again, ingenuity was to pull something new out of this magician’s hat. In this case, a new customer profile: companies that buy tuna. The price of this product shoots up depending on its histamine levels, and Biolan’s microbiosensors measured this parameter with mathematical accuracy. Thus, Biscay-based company shifted its entire technology and business model towards this product, and even added sardines and anchovies to its catalogue. It then expanded all over the world, especially to those countries where large amounts of fish are produced or consumed. Today it’s a world leader in this field and running in the black. It now has 60 employees on its payroll at its headquarters in Zamudio, and seven international offices.

This isn’t the only milestone the company has reached. In the wake of the pandemic in 2020, Biolan decided to apply its technology to virus measurement. It does this with very inexpensive serological strips that can tell when a person is immune to COVID-19 with enormous accuracy. They’re already on the market, with results that can be obtained in five minutes. Biolan Health is now a new division with enormous potential.