19_10_01_ECO_mario_fernandez

Mario Fernández Iglesias, student of Business Administration and Law at the University of Navarra, has launched Poween, a start up that offers a new technological application aimed at optimizing energy consumption in homes. Poween offers a solution to the waste of resources through a kit of three devices that control the expense of water, electricity and gas. This is the first business plan, emerged in Fast Track, which is constituted as business.

These devices study the energy behavior in each home and help users to improve their consumption habits by offering them a more optimized tariff.

The energy saving kit is adaptable to any home subject , can be controlled from any device through a single app and consists of an intelligent electricity monitor, a thermostat to regulate the temperature and extend the life of the boiler, plugs that are activated only in those hours when energy is more economical and a device located in the shower that will alert you if your water consumption exceeds the predetermined values.

In addition to the economic savings, Poween's solution achieves a more rational use of energy and reduces the waste of the planet's natural resources.

"I would feel a sense of accomplishment if project could be consolidated by the number of families we can actually help."

Born in Tordesillas, Valladolid, Mario Fernández was one of the fifty students who participated last year in Innovation Factory's Fast Track program. A program that has as goal to develop the innovative ideas of the participants into business plans ready to present to investors.

Once he finished training, Fernández decided to go to internship project and set up his own business. "I had always had the idea of entrepreneurship. In my family I am surrounded by entrepreneurs. From a very young age I have had to do my bit for the family business. For me, Christmas, summer or Easter, were moments of work. You know. Hospitality," he says.

After incorporating as a limited company (SL), and thanks to the support of mentor who supervised the project, Jon Yerro, Poween got a new boost from Metxa, an accelerator of entrepreneurship projects located in Vitoria. "I would feel very fulfilled if the project managed to consolidate. Not because of the profits or losses that can be achieved, but because of the number of families that we can really help," adds Mario Fernández.

Metxa decided to invest in business and last July received €30,000 from subsidy thanks to the Basque Government'sscholarship Ekintzaile. "The idea is increasingly supported by the institutions," he says. The project has also had the backing of the Alava Business and Innovation Center, BIC Araba, and the Basque Government's Business Agency development . Poween is currently seeking funding to obtain the first units of the energy saving kit and is registered in BIND 4.0., an acceleration program that puts startups and large companies in contact , from where they can get partnership agreements of up to €175,000.

The team that developed Poween's idea together with Mario Fernandez during his training at Fast Track was composed of Inmaculada Aguilera, a former student at the Master's Degree at research BiomedicalPablo Suárez, 2nd year of Economicsin Biomedicine; Cindy Ocasio, former student of the Master's Degree in Political and Corporate Communication (MCPC); and María Muñoz, formerand María Muñoz, alumnus of the Master's Degree in Food, Nutrition and Metabolism (E-MENU)..

250 students and 40 business plans

More than one hundred students and alumni from different Schools and schools have signed up for a new edition of Fast Track. The work sessions will start next October 3rd. Innovation Factory organizes every year this program, a pathway of training internship in entrepreneurship for students and alumni of the center who are interested in innovation or in creating their own businesses. Participants work in multidisciplinary teams formed by students from all Schools and the goal is to develop the best business plan. During this training process, participants receive sessions on design thinking, lean start up, market validation, financial statements, business plan and communication.

To date, 250 students have participated in Fast Track and have developed more than 40 business plans. The program concludes on April 1 with the submission awards ceremony, which will take place at Innovation Day. After the closing, the winners travel to Israel on the Innovation Trip, an inspirational trip for the students to learn first-hand about the entrepreneurial fabric of the startup-nation.