It is a perception, a vision, a brand. Because giving a name is a good way to identify the path. The track of “Mountain Genius”, as if it were that of a “route” to be opened, is as clear as the summit.

The way to go to reach the goals of Mountain Genius is compelling and full of challenges; we are mountain people and we know well the committed strength of work, the patience of taking one step at a time, with harmony, overcoming gorges and covering distances that seemed unbridgeable, the perseverance in keeping the goal firmly in both mind and heart and the art of marvelling at the beauty of the mountains, moment by moment, even amidst the most extreme difficulties.

What Mountain Genius wants to be is clearly stated in the “pay off” that we have chosen: “The Mountain Hub”, the go-to point for everything related to the mountain world.
It is an ambitious perspective, but it is the only one with which it is possible to correctly frame the reality we want to deal with: not individual mountains or a single country, not simply those of tourists or scientists, but everyone’s mountains.
Because this is what the heights are: an essential resource of humanity and the planetary ecosystem, just like the oceans or the great forests or the deserts.
A few data are enough to clarify what we are talking about: the mountains are the home of 15% of the world population and it is estimated that 60% to 80% of the planet’s drinking water comes from them, much of which irrigates the plains and quenches the thirst of big cities. The survival of over 1 billion and 900 million people depends on the resources of mountain areas, more than a quarter of the entire population of the Earth. The planet’s biodiversity is largely distributed in mountain areas and high-altitude forests. And precisely water, biodiversity, the health of nature and man, the ability to create a network of knowledge for the ecological transition of natural and human complexities, still afflicted by poverty, are the drivers of future action that emerged over the recent G20 Environment, held in Italy.

Mountain Genius is the ideal tool that today’s communication- and knowledge-sharing technologies make available to create an international observation and action point. A Hub open to the most diverse contributions, in which to collect, compare and stimulate the development of know-how relating to the research, management and protection of mountain areas and their ecological transition. All of this without forgetting the fundamental aspect of dissemination: because, in order to create truly effective protection and enhancement strategies, it is essential to open research laboratories and decision-makers’ rooms, to reach a collective and informed awareness of what mountain heritage is.

We will do this within an organization, a startup, which we have called “EvK2Minoprio” and with the “Mountain Genius” brand. An emblematic place of nature and men, the Minoprio Foundation, a few kilometers from Como, welcomes Mountain Genius, the Hub of the Mountains.
There have been more than 30 years of scientific research and cooperation on the most important mountains and “high lands” of the planet, hundreds of experts, researchers and publications, dozens of research centers and universities, of which today “EvK2Minoprio” takes up the baton by placing itself at the service of knowledge and the future. It does so by organizing High Summit COP26, on 24 and 25 September, included in the MiTE program “All4Climate – Italy 2021. An event organized in close collaboration with the Mountain Partnership FAO Secretariat, (30 governments and 150 international organizations) and together with government institutions and NGOs, international, national and scientific bodies.
This is the birth certificate of Mountain Genius, which in Minoprio, Stelvio, Nepal, Pakistan, and in the countries where Mountain Partnership is present will build the Mountain Hubs.

This is what we will do from now on and which will be expressed in the Mountain Genius digital platform, where scientific research, information on projects implemented and conceived, best practices of mountain areas, rules and laws, conferences will find space, together with promotional activities, but also mountain-related news; all this in the different sections of the portal you are visiting.

These are not just good intentions, but a concrete path that has already started in conjunction with the birth of Mountain Genius.
We will turn our spotlights on with the High Summit COP 26, an international conference dedicated to mountains, climate change and sustainable development, in view of the United Nations global climate meeting, COP26, to be held in Glasgow from 1 to 12 November of this year.
Thanks to our pages we will closely follow all the initiatives related to the COP26 High Summit, we will give voice to the protagonists and researchers involved and we will collect the data of their scientific investigations, thus facilitating the exchange of information between them and the interaction with international bodies and local governments.
Our commitment, however, will also be to tell, explaining to the public of non-experts what is happening, to increasingly improve people’s understanding on how the knowledge of the mountain environment and the sustainable management of its resources have concrete and tangible effects on the life of all of us.
It will be some kind of “dress rehearsal” for the “Mountain Genius” project, a great adventure that we can’t wait to face together with all of you!