14-year old Valerie Cagnina: the Youngest Italian Travel Blogger & Tedx Speaker

Valerie Cagnina is a 14 year old Italian travel blogger, and she happens to be the youngest in the nation! Her successes include teaching herself to code, building robots, speaking at Tedx conferences, and many other exciting adventures. She has also recently been accepted to an entrepreneurship program for the summer, Leangap, where I will be mentoring!

Valeria & family while traveling through Sri Lanka

How could such a young girl travel the world? Well, her father works in refrigeration systems and her mother has an e-commerce platform for home and garden furniture; together they are able to travel all over the world with their work and explore new places throughout the year. The blog started as a family endeavor, and as Valeria grew older she came to have her own designated section for her and her adventures!

Valeria Cagnina learning to surf in Holland

Valeria has traveled all over the world; including Berlin, Rome, Paris, Iceland, Finland, Holland, Nepal, Austria, and many many more. However when asked where her favorite places to visit was, she stated none of the aforementioned. Instead, Boston and Sri Lanka topped her list. She said that visiting NASA and seeing the incredible technology in Boston was both memorable and inspirational. However, Sri Lanka had its own specialties. The people, wildlife, and scenery she exclaims were spectacular. Her favorite experiences while visiting included riding elephants, seeing pods of dolphins, and coming close to the over 30m long blue whales in the region!

She says that her favorite part about travelling is that she can meet other teens with different life experiences, see new technologies, experience new cultures, observe diverse wildlife, and take part in unique ways of living.​

Trip to Sri Lanka and Elephant Ride through the Forest

​In addition to blogging, Valeria has also spoken at numerous Tedx events. She relates her experience,

“During my Tedx, as an innovation ambassador, I discussed how I held a Coderdojo event, made a robot with ArduinoUNO, began teaching myself programming and learned from online videos, and about how I wrote 6 chapters in the book Guida ai Viaggi Cost (The Low Cost Travel Guide).

A little background, Coderdojo, is an after school program that I branched into the town of Alessandria to teach children from the ages of 7-14 how to code. We utilize Scratch, Arduino, CodeCombat, MakeyMakey, and others to give children the satisfying experience of creating their own digital animations and eventually a video game. I hope to be able to also utilize the iPad’s ScratchJr in order to teach 4-6 year olds, still unable to read,  how to code.”

But how did she first get the opportunity to speak?   “After my thesis and my nomination like Digital Champion there was a big event in Rome at Tempio di Adriano, we created a Coderdojo in Alessandria and from there I went on a lot of newspapers ( I went on ANSA news) and from there someone came to me with a call and request to participate at TEDx. Imagine my happiness!”

Surfing in Holland

​In addition to discussing the successes of those I interview, I always like to learn about how young people overcome trials on their path to early success. When chatting with Valeria she  said that her biggest trial was when she began public speaking. Connecting with a large audience of primarily adults was difficult, and Europe (especially Italy) wasn’t like the US in terms of technology. Schools and day to day life in Europe was not run and guided by technology as in the US, and she typically found herself being the only teen in the adult world of the Italian tech field. Overtime, she said she learned to overcome the communication barrier between adults and teens in the tech industry by finding new ways to relate to them.

Though Valeria is surrounded by adults in her work, she likes to keep a balanced life. She enjoys hanging out with friends at rhythmic gymnastics and teaching other young girls how to do gymnastics as well. She thinks it is important to stay rooted with others her age both while travelling and at home.

Her motivation stems from the desire to find and create new innovations that can help make an impact on the world.

Additionally, I asked if she could have dinner with anyone living or dead, who would it be? “Leonardo da Vinci.” Why?” Because he had an open mind and desire to go against the norm in every aspect of life. She states that he was a real revolutionary for his age, without tools, without the support of people surrounding him, risking so much for his work… he really changed the world with inventions and discoveries that we still use today.”

I imagine that Valeria will be very similar to her idol as she continues in the field of robotics, technological education, and public speaking. It is easy to see that this young traveler, blogger, gymnast, and programmer will be making large strides in the technological community one day, and she is one to look after!

​Additional & Closing Questions:

If you could give girl's three pieces of advice for life/ happiness/ success what would they be?   

1) Always try new things, and don’t be afraid of getting things wrong.
2) Be curious and attracted to things that are unknown.
3) Believe in yourself and in your potential.

Do you think that female empowerment is important? Why?                                        

"After having visited so many different parts of the world, I dream of a balanced world where opportunity is based solely on merit and not gender, nationality or religion…."

How would you like to become involved in female empowerment?

"I would like to teach girls, starting at a young age, that the world can be theirs. I’d like to teach them that by believing in themselves and having a hard work ethic can help you accomplish any goal. Nothing is impossible if you really want it!"

* If you had no limitations, what would you do?

"I’d like to study at MIT and create my startup in the robotics sector that cooperates with NASA; which focuses on space exploration with the use of robotics."

Hope you enjoyed, and learned a thing or two from my talented young friend! She truly inspires me to never let age get in the way of my success.

Until next time-

-SP