(m.l.) The students have been selected, the venue has been identified (Luserna - Trentino), the scientists and experts have been invited, the computer lab has been set up: everything is ready for the launch of the ninth edition of the WebValley, the summer camp based on the knowledge of new computer technologies dedicated to the young generations and organized by Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK) of Trento.

Since 2001, over 170 young people, just out of the second-last year of senior high-school, have enthusiastically participated in WebValley, based for the third time in Luserna in southern Trentino.
The previous formula has been confirmed: participants are invited to tackle a research challenge, developing it in the unconventional atmosphere of a small and geographically isolated – but excellently web-connected - mountain village.
For the 2009 edition, 16 students from the senior high-schools of the Region have been selected, three of which from Bolzano with a study grant offered by the Italian school system.

When
The boys and girls will spend three weeks at the KulturInstitut of Luserna, from Sunday, 21 June to Saturday, 11 July, working in team with the FBK researchers.

What is about?
The project of this ninth edition is interdisciplinary and fascinating: the transformation of scientific data into sound and music signals. The main theme, in fact, will be how the world of research, especially that of molecular biology applied to medicine, has been completely revolutionized by the availability of machines capable of producing billions of data items in an extremely short time.
The young participants will be asked to develop an open source software capable of adding sounds and musical structures to the display via graphs (which was the theme of the 2008 edition of WebValley), via the combination of information science, genetics, bio-technologies and music. The project’s aim is to create the Trentino versions of "data sonification" (use of non-speech audio to transform data into information) and of “DNA music”, starting from the data generated by the Fondazione Bruno Kessler research, derived from the world of bio-informatics and of epidemiological and environmental monitoring. The students will be working with real data, using present day examples – data on the influenza pandemic – and derived from Trentino’s agricultural system, thanks to the cooperation of the Cantina Mori –  Colli Zugna winery. The most dedicated technologists will be allowed to test the new software on graphics processing networks (GPU computing).

This edition’s novelties
Together with the FBK expert researchers, in Luserna there will be five junior tutors aged under 25, four of whom former students from previous WebValley editions now working in FBK laboratories of Trento. The in-depth study of the technical aspects and help in designing the project will be ensured by the presence of experts in the perception of complex knowledge from acoustic stimuli, electronic music and bio-informatics. The whole project also envisages the participation of visually impaired computer experts.

Student selection criteria
The girls and boys were selected first by the schools and then by a panel of FBK researchers based on various requisites, such as curiosity for the world of scientific research, school performance, personal interest in the interdisciplinary applications of information science, knowledge of the English language. Out of the 25 final candidates, 16 were selected and received a grant that included room, board, travel and participation in all of the project’s activities and in the camp’s entertainment programme. The group of participants included students that excelled in school, were interested in music, enthusiastic about open source computer science, or more simply young people happy to grab the opportunity of exploring the world of scientific research and to learn whether it could become their future.

The 2009 edition of Web Valley is financed by the Autonomous Province of Trento via the Programme Agreement with Fondazione Bruno Kessler. Moreover, the initiative will be supported by the cooperative Computer Learning in addition to the municipality and to the KulturInstitut of Luserna hosting the camp.

Link to the project’s website and to all of the information regarding previous editions:
http://webvalley.fbk.eu