Valeria Cagnina

Valeria discovers her passion for robotics at the young age of eleven when, using an Arduino kit, she quickly creates her first robot capable of moving while avoiding obstacles. During her middle school exams, she decides to leverage the potential of Facebook to write her thesis and interview Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano while he is in orbit in space, demonstrating how the internet can be used intelligently and effectively by children. Her skills and innovative vision are noticed by many, and she is soon involved in events and projects that lead her to build a robot 800 km away, using Skype, in collaboration with Leonardo Falanga, another young talented enthusiast of robotics and artificial intelligence. The following year, she is invited as a speaker at TEDx MilanoWomen, then at CNR in Pisa, at the Italian Senate and finally at the opening conference of Maker Faire Rome 2015 where, in the Aula Magna of Sapienza, she delivers the speech 'The World I Would Like', an analysis of the internet from the perspective of the connections and relationships between people.

At fifteen years old, he spends the entire summer at MIT in Boston, at the Robotics Department, with the role of senior tester and the task of building an autonomous robot capable of moving on its own within a simulated city, following university tutorials and optimizing them to make them accessible to high school students.

Today Valeria is sixteen years old and, after school, she teaches robotics to children and teenagers both in the classroom and via Skype. Her courses and lessons cover hardware, software, robots, drones, robotic arms, and creative activities always with a tech background, showing teachers how to apply these teaching methods in the classroom. She does not consider herself a NERD; she is passionate about travel, rhythmic gymnastics, origami, animation, creative work, and enjoys taking care of the garden.