Born in La Chaux de Fonds, in the Canton of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, Marc-Antoine Schaer belongs to a generation that grew up on skis and snowboards. He came to mountaineering as a teenager and developed a passion for the Patrouille des Glaciers race, competing at a high level in eight editions. Also an adept of kitesurfing and paragliding and a Microtechnology Engineering graduate of EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, he was perfectly placed to combine the best of both worlds. And that is how this dynamo invented and marketed Alpride, one of the world’s best-selling avalanche airbag systems.