A wonderful day out — at the zoo.

We will be honest: a company that maintains the cryptographic library most of the internet runs on does not get many days that smell of cut grass and sunscreen. Most of our work is invisible by design — the quiet padlock, the handshake you never see, the part of the modern world that doesn't glow until it fails. So when Zoo Brno asked us back to help celebrate their polar bears, we closed the laptops, printed a lot of colouring sheets, and went.

The occasion was "Vítejte, medvědi!" — Welcome, bears! — a day built around the zoo's reconstructed Beringia enclosure and its residents: Cora, the matriarch who has raised cubs here before, and the younger pair Anna and Elsa. Last year, when the enclosure reopened, OpenSSL Corporation was its general sponsor and the rain came down sideways. This year the city turned up in shorts. We took the weather as a personal endorsement.

At ten, the day opened the way these things should: a ribbon, a pair of scissors that never quite want to work, and a small crowd willing the bears to do something photogenic. Thomas did the honours and cut it cleanly on the first try — which, for anyone who has ever fought ceremonial scissors, is its own kind of achievement.

It was a proper Brno line-up: the zoo, the city, our fellow partners, and us — standing together for one simple idea, that the bears should have a good home and the neighbourhood should have somewhere wonderful to bring the kids.

We said a few words about why a software company turns up to a zoo opening. Then we got out of the way — because the bears are the headline act, and they know it.

Half an hour later came the part everyone secretly shows up for. Lenka took the keeper's chute, the commentary started, and Anna and Elsa got down to the serious business of breakfast while the crowd held its collective breath. There is a very particular silence a few hundred people make when a polar bear decides whether or not to swim — and then the very particular cheer when it does.

Then one of them hauled out, shook off half the pool over the front row, and reminded everyone why you don't get this from a screen. You can read about a polar bear. You can stream a polar bear. You cannot feel the spray of one from twelve metres away on a sunny Saturday — and that gap, between the thing and the picture of the thing, is more or less the whole reason we came.

Back at the stand, the real work was happening — in crayon. We had laid out bear colouring sheets, the join-the-dots kind and the draw-the-other-half kind, and they were a hit. Kids leaned in two to a clipboard, parents quietly took over "to help," and a small queue formed for the good felt-tips. Somewhere in there a child connected dots 1 through 44 and produced a bear of genuine character.

It is a small thing, a colouring table. But it is also the most honest version of who we are: a company that takes the hardest, least visible problems in computing very seriously — and still believes the point of all of it is people. Neighbours. Families. A kid who will remember the day they drew a polar bear at the zoo.

Every one of the drawings below came home with us. We are a little bit proud of them.

From the colouring table

A bear & a tree Od Adrianky Od Klárky Grey & pink Pink & red ears The other half Pink swirls Magenta paws Dot-to-dot Free spirit

A day like this is never one logo. Zoo Brno ran the show; the City of Brno turned out; Teplárny Brno had the big red tent next door; and two HC Kometa Brno polar-bear mascots arrived and — for reasons that need no further explanation — raced each other on bicycles. The kids lost their minds. It was perfect.

There were giveaways doing the rounds, too: the plush OpenSSL bears in their little white t-shirts (the most fought-over object on site), enamel mugs, a heap of purple OpenSSL Conference lanyards, and — because somebody has to be the grown-up — bowls of apples and bananas for a healthy snack between the ice creams. We make no apologies for the fruit.

And yes — there was a microphone. Thomas took a turn on Hitrádio's live broadcast to talk about who we are, why a cryptography company has made Brno its European home, and why on earth we keep showing up at the zoo. (Short version: because we live here now. Long version: keep reading.)

Here is the part worth saying plainly, because it is the part that matters to a mayor, a minister, or anyone deciding what kind of company they want putting down roots in their city.

OpenSSL is the cryptographic software a vast share of the internet links against to keep a message private between sender and reader. Banking, identity, health records, the energy grid, the page you are reading right now — they all lean on this code.

We are the company behind it. Working directly with the maintainers, we provide the support, FIPS 140 validation, post-quantum readiness and long-term support that let institutions depend on OpenSSL with confidence — and we steward the project and its mission. It is serious, consequential, slightly terrifying work, and most companies that do it keep their heads down in a business park somewhere.

That is the difference we are trying to live. We believe security and privacy are a fundamental human right — not a luxury feature, not a thing reserved for the people who can afford it — and a right is only real if the people who protect it stay part of the community they protect.

So we put our European home in Brno. We partner with the city's universities, we sponsor the bears, and we hand a kid a crayon — the same company, in the same week. That is not a marketing stunt; it is the whole thesis.

To the city of Brno and to the Czech Republic: thank you for making this an easy place to be both serious and human. We intend to keep earning it — in the code, and at the zoo.

The t-shirts gave it away. The whole team wore them all day, so consider this your formal invitation: the second OpenSSL Conference comes to Prague this October, 13–15, and it is where the serious conversations — post-quantum, supply-chain integrity, the next decade of this work — happen out loud and in person. Different room, same belief: the things that matter are worked out by people who show up.