"My work consisted of structuring and digitizing the Innovation Ecosystem of the University of Navarra."

Engineering student Fermin Cerezo sits on one of the chairs at campus in San Sebastian. He arrives prepared for the interview, with a script he calls a paper, with which he explains the internship he was immersed in last summer, largely thanks to Tecnun professors Gustavo Pego and Iñigo Gutiérrez. His experience as an editor in the Press Club of the School of Engineering, in which he is the one who conducts interviews with professors and students, tells him that, if he is prepared, he will better express something interesting, but which, at first glance, may seem complex. It is not.

Fermin Cerezo is in his 4th year of Industrial Organization Engineering."When Gustavo Pego explained to me the work that I could develop in the start up Moonshot, I found it impressive. It really caught my attention. I had never heard of the concept of Innovation Ecosystem and when I understood it, I realized its potential", begins student Pamplona. And he clarifies: "An ecosystem is a physical environment where different organizations join their efforts, visions and potential in order to go beyond individual limits and through partnership, transform this knowledge into innovation".

Moonshot, the platform Fermin worked with, aims to bring "that physical world to the digital environment", and his work last summer was to structure and digitize the Innovation Ecosystem of the University of Navarra.

At first, and with the support of the University of Navarra's Corporate Entrepreneurship director , Gustavo Pego, he focused his work on the biomedical and biotechnology sector, and on the companies with which Tecnun has a close relationship, many of them participants in the traditional Forum of employment. Of course, the Miramon Technology Park, "which is a gold mine and an Innovation Ecosystem initself", as the student points out: "I contacted the managers of these organizations and start-ups that use disruptive technologies, that is, that attract attention, so that they would register on the platform".

"All large companies have an Innovation Ecosystem because they transmit knowledge to each other, within the limits of skill, but within these relationships, start ups emerge, there are investors who want to go and finance projects, universities involved, groups of research...", continues Fermin. "All the actors that approach an organization and want to work with them revolve around their strategic innovation objectives, and they are the ones that form the ecosystem. What benefits a business is the contact with all these actors to bring its products to fruition. Each actor offers and seeks something different from the relationship and has its own benefits," he says.

This project opened several doors for Fermin. First of all, it brought him closer to companies he didn't know, since he had to document and learn about them before starting a partnership. "Let's say that they went through a filter that was mine, I would find out what they were about, what technology they used, what they did, and according to a taxonomy that was made by business itself, I would classify them. For example, in categories subject: robotics, graphene, biomaterials...".

At staff, says student, "ithas been a very good opportunity to contact with the working world, without any doubt. I have learned a lot about technologies that I didn't even know existed before, different business models, and it has given me a professional vision that I didn't have before".

He now has another one open and does not rule out taking it up again. In fact, he would very much like to get into it in the future, perhaps even with his project de Fin de Degree. "I would certainly like to continue learning in this line. It is one of the reasons why I am going to take the Master's Degree in Technological Innovation at campus in Madrid. I was looking for a Master's Degree in this line, I wanted to do it in Madrid and all the favorable circumstances came together: I happened to find the product I wanted, in the place I wanted and, on top of that, with the University of Navarra".