From glaciers to global markets — pricing climate risk before it's too late. An interactive system for understanding the fragility of mountain economies.
Explore the SystemDrag to rotate. These 3D models show how the Rutor glacier is projected to change based on current warming trends. The glacier's area shrank from 8.44 km² in 2005 to 7.58 km² in 2019 — and the retreat is accelerating.
Now explore what happens when you change the variables. Move the sliders to see how temperature, tourism, investment, and education reshape the risk profile of a mountain community.
I grew up in Aosta, in the shadow of the Mont Blanc massif. Every summer I watched the Rutor glacier shrink a little more. Every winter, the ski season started a little later. Every year, a few more friends left for Milan or Turin and didn't come back.
The data you explored in the Risk Engine above is not abstract to me. The 150 million cubic meters of lost water — that's the river that powered my town's economy. The -27% snow deficit — that's the season that didn't come. The youth migration rate — those are my classmates.
At Ca' Foscari in Venice, I studied economics in a city that is itself sinking. At the ECB in Frankfurt, I learned how systemic risk propagates through financial networks. At PwC in Milan, I saw how businesses quantify uncertainty. Now at USC, I'm learning to build the AI and data systems that can turn these problems into solutions.
The Alpine Intelligence Scholarship is the bridge I wish existed when I was 18 — a way for students from fragile mountain communities to gain world-class technical training and bring it home, before it's too late.
Each area directly connects to the variables in the Risk Engine above. The Scholarship trains students to build the systems that protect mountain communities.
This is not biography. It is blueprint. Education scales impact when it returns home.
“Global education is not escape.
It is amplification.”