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Natasha Burao ’22 (College of Visual and Performing Arts), ’23, ’24 (Martin J. Whitman School of Management) and Thomas Monfort ’24 (School of Engineering and Computer Science) are selected as Spring 2024 recipients. I got it. The Hunter Brooks Watson Memorial Fund (Hunter Fund) awards awards through competitive national applications. This grant rewards innovation and reflects the talent and passion that Hunter Watson brought to his life. Hunter was a rising junior majoring in the iSchool of Information Studies at Syracuse University when he tragically passed away in 2016 in a car accident caused by distracted driving. His family and friends established the Hunter Foundation to honor his legacy and “provide support to young people approaching life with powerful ideas.”
Natasha Burao ’22 G’23, G’24 and Thomas Monfort ’24
The grant from Hunter’s Fund will allow Brao and Montfort to develop a product roadmap and business model for their student venture. They look forward to honoring Hunter’s legacy of passion for innovation and entrepreneurship.
Brao founded a creative agency that develops brand strategy and design for clients, from products to services to environments. A culinary entrepreneur fascinated by the creativity of food, she is also the founder of Root and Seed Brands, a company that brings authentic, complete and culturally diverse foods to market. She launches her first product line, Shuka Sauce, a Mediterranean-inspired spiced tomato sauce that celebrates the mixing and fusion of cultural flavors. Brao is also an Orange Distinction Award recipient and an Invest in Success Scholar.
Working with the university’s innovation ecosystem, alumni and industry advisors, Mr. Burao recently completed the first production of professionally bottled sauces, winning accolades and funding in Whitman’s Fall 2023 Orange Tank Did. She founded her own business with support from the Library’s Student Startup Award (funded by Library Advisory Board Member Jeff Rich ’67) and recently completed its first commercial operation with a co-packer in Rochester. It was produced and won the first Library Orange Innovation Award. to bring her product to market. The grant from the Hunter Foundation will help generate large-scale production to bring her sauce to market.
“We are honored to receive support from the Hunter Foundation and will use this opportunity to continue to advance Hunter’s passion and creative influence on life by our side,” says Burao.
Mr. Monfort recently completed a software engineering internship at Amazon Web Services in Austin, Texas, following a software engineering internship at JPMorgan Chase the previous summer. Montfort is one of the original co-founder team members and a former vice president of Cuse Blockchain, a student organization based in his SU Library focused on research and education on blockchain technology.
This summer, he tried to train his own artificial intelligence (AI) model, but found he couldn’t access the computing resources he needed from major cloud providers like Amazon and Microsoft. This led him to co-found Agora Labs, with the aim of making it easier for his AI engineers and researchers to train his AI models. To date, Agora Labs has conducted alpha testing with more than 10 Ph.D. students in his AI lab at multiple universities. The company then launched its platform to the public in January and gained paying customers. Mr. Montfort received the inaugural Library Orange Innovation Fund Award to support the commercialization of his business. The grant from Hunter’s Fund will help accelerate time to market while continuing to support the company’s increasing costs.
“It was so inspiring to hear Ms. Hunter’s story, and it means even more to receive financial support from the Hunter Foundation to continue building the Agora Institute,” says Monfort. . “This will help us achieve our mission to train the next 1 million students to develop world-changing AI applications.”
Hunter’s Fund supports young people ages 16 to 25 who pursue careers in music, performing arts, computer science, and entrepreneurship and realize their potential through talent, experience, and passion. Since the foundation’s inception, more than 84 grants have been awarded. The Hunter Foundation is also working with universities, including Syracuse, on educational efforts to end distracted driving.
Winners will be selected by the Hunter’s Team, a group of former grant recipients and volunteers who are friends of Hunter Watson and want to continue the legacy he inspired. Team members support fundraising, board governance, committees, and score the hundreds of grant applications submitted each season. Team members also serve as mentors for young people who win grants, providing guidance and insight to help them realize their dreams. They help promote and coordinate safe driving programs on school campuses.
Previous Hunter Foundation grant recipients include Taylor Lotte ’19, Nicholas Barba ’20, and Justin Gruska ’23.
The Hunter Brooks Watson Memorial Fund has a strong partnership with SU Libraries. Each year, the Watson family has donated funds for the Hunter Brooks Watson Scholarship at the Bird Library’s Blackstone Launch Pad. Scholars include Kayla Simon (19), Audrey Miller (20), Emma Rothman (21), Jack Ramza (22), Jack Adler (23), and John (Jack) Rose (24) will appear. Each year, the Scholar role is awarded by Launchpad to a college student who exemplifies Hunter’s entrepreneurial spirit and is modeled after the Syracuse Memorial Scholars Program.
Additionally, the Hunter Foundation sponsors the Hunter Brooks Watson Spirit of Entrepreneurship Competition each spring in conjunction with the iSchool’s annual Raymond von Doran iPrize.
“Every time I go there, I see Hunter’s name and picture on the wall of the Launchpad, and I worked with Jerry and Judy Watson to remember Hunter Brooks Watson and share his life. It’s a reminder of how lucky we were to be able to celebrate a life, a legacy,” says Library Director and University Librarian David Seaman. “These Hunter Fund grants are an investment in our current students, advancing their ideas and encouraging them to follow entrepreneurial paths wherever they go.”
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