Needle In A Haystack, Helmet In A Mountain
How drones, AI, and human determination helped find a missing doctor in the Italian Alps nearly a year after he disappeared.
A 64-year-old Italian Doctor was missing for nearly a year. His last cell‑tower ping placed him near the summit of Monviso in the Italian Alps. He set out alone on a hike from Pontechianale in the Vallone di Vallanta. His body was discovered on Thursday, July 31, 2025, with the help of artificial intelligence.
In a story first published in WIRED Italy, we learn how The National Alpine and Speleological Rescue Corps (CNSAS) found the proverbial needle in the haystack with drones and AI to finally bring peace to his family.
After months with no answers, “It was the AI software that identified some pixels of a different color in the images taken on Tuesday,” explained Saverio Isola, the CNSAS drone pilot and one of the key players in the discovery.
Read the remainder of the Wired story for more of the details, I’d just like to point out one additional point made by Isola, which to me seems added for specific emphasis. He shares,
“We’ve been using drones for about five years, and for about a year and a half we’ve been integrating color and shape recognition technologies, developing them month by month.
But all of this would be useless without the teams of technicians.
It’s a human achievement, but without technology, it would have been an impossible mission.
It’s a team success.”
This is the world we live in today. Humans + Artificial Intelligence. Let the race for AGI take place in silicon valley. Today’s AI tools have given us “an abundance of intelligence at our fingertips.”
It’s HUMAN INGENUITY and HUMAN WILL that finds Dr. Nicola Ivaldo.
Don’t you think?
Image Credit: Carmine Bonanni, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
About Jeremy
Jeremy Victor is a transformational COO, author, and podcast host focused on helping companies scale with empathy, efficiency, and AI. A human-first operator with 30 years of experience leading through every major tech inflection point—from the birth of the internet to today’s AI revolution—Jeremy turns complexity into growth and chaos into calm.
He’s the voice behind the Business at the Speed of AI podcast and newsletter, where he explores the intersection of leadership, modernization, and the always-on economy. His work is guided by a simple belief: that operational excellence and human connection aren’t trade-offs—they’re the future.
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