Francis Sauro

Born in 1984, he is an Italian speleologist and geologist, as well as president of the Association of Geographical Explorations La Venta. He has participated in over thirty expeditions, exploring caves and canyons in South America, Central Asia and other remote places on the planet. During these adventures, he has led multidisciplinary teams of researchers. During his career, he was awarded the prestigious Rolex Award for Enterprise for the discovery of ancient caves in the tabular mountains of Venezuela.

He also studies and explores Italian karst systems and teaches Planetary Geology as a contract professor at the University of Bologna. He is also a consultant for the European Space Agency, collaborating in training astronauts for future planetary exploration missions.

In 2016, Time magazine named him one of the 20 most influential young people in the world. He was a guest at National Geographic 's Explorer Festival in Washington in June 2019 and will appear in the second season of National Geographic's One Strange Rock series, appearing in the episodes dedicated to colors (filmed in Slovenia with astronaut Alexander Gerst) and sounds (filmed in the Italian Dolomites with biologist Michel André).

His discoveries in the caves of Venezuela and other parts of the world have been covered by international broadcasters and magazines such as the BBC ( The Dark , 2012; Mountain Challenge 2 , 2016; The Genius Behind , 2016), ARTE, ZDF, National Geographic Magazine (Italian and French editions), GEO and Scientific America . In Italy he has appeared on numerous television programmes, including TG1 ( Rai 1 ), Che tempo che fa ( Rai 2 ), GEO ( Rai 3 ), Kilimangiaro ( Rai 3 ) and Voyager ( Rai 2 ).

He is also one of the protagonists of Rolex's Perpetual Planet campaign, which sees him alongside iconic figures of world exploration such as Sir Edmund Hillary, James Cameron and Sylvia Earle.

With him and the association La venta we are starting a collaboration project that will accompany us in 2025