Alfonso Boned, a second year student of Degree in attendance de Dirección-Management Assistant, has been recognized at the Innovation Day 2019 of the University of Navarra with the award to the most innovative student for his participation in the InnChallenge competition.

This competition, organized by Innovation Factory, the University's Entrepreneurship and Innovation Unit, sought to solve two real problems at campus in Pamplona: the accumulation of cigarette butts on the floor and wet umbrellas when entering buildings. 

Boned's work consisted of providing a solution to the problem of cigarette butts. To do so, he used a project already used years ago by the Madrid City Council, which did not come to fruition.

"Innovation is not always inventing something from scratch, it is also transforming and improving the ideas of others. Thanks to my degree program I have learned a lot about communication, just what, in my opinion, was missing from that idea. At ISSA I have been lucky enough to have great teachers like Belén Goñi, Mari Carmen Erviti and Ana María Fernández, among others, who have taught me how to communicate and find solutions to problems," she says.

The idea he presented is based on giving the cigarette butts a further use. Each week a question will be posed to the students and they will answer it using their cigarette butts. Next to the ashtrays, placed at the exit, there will be a cardboard box divided into sections that will show the inside. Each section will be assigned an answer to the question posed. The question is answered by placing the cigarette butt in the section of the box that corresponds to the answer. With the accumulation of cigarette butts a mountain will be created and at the end of each week the mountains of cigarette butts will be compared by putting them together.

"The original idea was like that, but they asked questions like "Atlético de Madrid or Real Madrid?". If you don't like soccer or you're from Rayo Vallecano you're no longer interested. Besides the fact that the boxes were very small and inconspicuous, there was no way to know the result. We have to ask questions that everyone wants to answer. You have to talk about it even if you don't smoke," he says.

"The award is to learn from very prepared people in the best environment to innovate."

Thanks to this recognition, Alfonso will have the opportunity to be part of the Students Innovation Team next year and will also be able to travel to Israel to participate in an innovation hub: "The award is the opportunity to learn from highly qualified people in the best environment for innovation. I am very happy to have the chance to do this and I hope to make the most of it".

Alfonso Boned started degree program last year. He says he chose the Degree in attendance Management because it had everything he was looking for: "A global vision of business combined with languages, communication, ICTs and management. It seemed to be tailor-made for me. Once I met her, it was clear to me.

In the future he would like to make a niche for himself in the music industry. Not as a musician or singer, but in the organization of big festivals. If one day he can, he would even love to work in the organization of Eurovision, because, as he explains, he is very attracted by "coordinating more than 40 different delegations with different ways of working" and because it is a festival that "requires innovation every year".