Morabanc Andorra, Unicef and Vatel will work with vocational training students in the Tàndem project’s fourth edition

The fourth edition of the Actua’s Tàndem project was presented on Tuesday, September 24th, at the Innovation Space of Andorra. Tàndem is a program which aims to involve the Andorran vocational training community with innovative projects that are developed in companies.

This year, 68 students and 12 teachers from the Aixovall centre are taking part, and will work on the challenges posed by Morabanc Andorra (How to make basketball a priority leisure option for people aged between 20 and 40); Unicef (How to promote collaboration between young people in Andorra and Unicef); and Vatel (How to make professions in the hotel and tourism sector more attractive for students in the country).

The Minister of Education and Higher Education, Ester Vilarrubla, stressed that ” the Andorran education system has always thought that schools should not be isolated from reality and interactions with the business sector should be significant. Therefore, what a better way than working on a real project to stimulate the learning processes. Doing so, students know from the very beginning that what you are learning will have or may have an immediate application.

Ferran Costa, leader of the Actua’s Education Cluster, emphasized that “Tàndem wants to boost the innovative capacity of students and teachers of vocational training and generate value for companies. The aim is to develop a model of relationship with companies that promotes, in an organized and systematic way, innovation and entrepreneurship”.

The presentation was attended by the MoraBanc Andorra Basketball club managing director, Sergi Romero, the Unicef Andorra’s director, Marta Alberch, and Roser Daban, director of the Andorran school Vatel.

Previous Editions

Tàndem’s first edition ended in May 2017, with the presentation of three proposals from vocational training students that gave different solutions to the challenge posed by Perfumería Júlia, which consisted of analysing the behaviour of customers in order to improve the experiences at their establishments. The winning project was an application that captured customer information thanks to a method that combines NFC technology, Wifi and Bluetooth. Eleven students participated, led by five teachers, and with the involvement of this only company, Perfumería Julia.

In the second edition, the vocational training students had to face the challenges posed by Dermandtek, Hotels Plaza and Inlingua.
Dermandtek challenged students on how to make people aware of the need for check-ups to prevent skin cancer. Hotels Plaza wanted to offer a personalised gift experience for its clients; and Inlingua proposed the creation of an attractive linguistic immersion project during the months of July and -08- aimed at teenagers. Among the five finalist projects, the winner proposed the creation of an application and a loyalty points system that allows the client to enjoy exclusive advantages and activities in the hotel facilities. In this edition all the students of the Vocational Training Centre (61) took part, supervised by 11 teachers, and they worked on challenges posed by three companies.

On Tàndem’s third edition, vocational training students worked on innovation challenges posed by Andorra Telecom, Gamma Management and VallmedicVision. The winning team presented a series of proposals to improve sales of Andorra Telecom’s prepaid cards. 72 students took part, supervised by 12 teachers. With regards to the challenges, Andorra Telecom asked the students to work on initiatives to innovate the prepaid mobile phone offer in order to reach more customers; VallmedicVision wanted ideas to raise awareness among the Andorran population to avoid the abusive use of digital screens in order to reduce the incidence of myopia; and Gamma Management wanted to improve the relationship of this human resources company with its customers, who are companies and candidates.