Campus - 16.07.2026 - 09:00
Two childhood friends from Valais are behind SwissDiscover: one is a computer scientist, the other a professional drone pilot. Nicolas Montani and Baptiste Mabillard grew up as friends on the language border in the canton of Valais. The mountain landscape of their home region has always been a natural part of their lives – yet for many visitors from Switzerland and abroad, it is a tourist destination.
“During my studies, I thought to myself: we need to do more with the thousands of hours of drone footage that Baptiste has shot all over Switzerland,” says Montani. In February 2026, after completing his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science at HSG, he programmed an initial prototype. “We deliberately work quickly and iteratively – the platform has now undergone three updates. There are only two of us in the team, so we can coordinate quickly,” says Montani.
SwissDiscover currently offers an interactive map of Switzerland on which users can access drone videos from various regions. “The quantity and quality of the video material is unrivalled in Switzerland,” says Montani. The platform aims not only to showcase well-known destinations, but also to highlight smaller towns, vantage points and places of interest that lie outside the usual tourist circuits.
Anyone who spots an interesting place in a video can search the map for so-called ‘points’: such as castles, seaside resorts, waterfalls, dams or mountain railways. These places can be grouped together in a planning tool to form a ‘point pack’ – a personalised itinerary that can be saved or exported.
The initial focus is on short excursions and weekend breaks. In the long term, SwissDiscover aims to cover the whole of Switzerland in as much detail as possible and build up a broad user base. Revenue is to be generated, amongst other things, through partnerships with cantonal and regional tourism organisations. Travel packages put together and sold via the platform are a possibility. “To build reach for such sales, we need strong partners – such as tourism organisations or travel influencers,” says Montani.
SwissDiscover also incorporates playful elements into its design. A small geography game is embedded in the platform: users watch short videos and have to guess on a map where they were filmed. The closer the guess is to the actual location, the more points they earn. “Above all, the game encourages people to discover unfamiliar places or see familiar ones in a new light,” says Montani.
SwissDiscover is still a small, self-funded two-person start-up. Montani is primarily responsible for technical development, whilst Mabillard provides the video footage, his experience in aerial photography and a network within the tourism industry.
Montani wanted to set up a start-up from an early age. He initially began studying Business Administration at HSG, but switched to the Bachelor of Computer Science after a year. “The combination of computer science and business was ideal for me,” he says. He was particularly influenced by the vibrant community at the HSG School of Computer Science: many students were working on their own projects, building products or setting up companies.
His degree provided him with a solid technical foundation, whilst also enabling him to engage with lecturers and fellow students. Because the programme was still in its infancy, much of it felt almost like a start-up: direct, open and with short lines of communication. “I love coding – but without the understanding of business that I gained at HSG, Swissdiscover wouldn’t have become the same idea,” says Montani.
