Grant awarded to Lakeland native
Akshay Ramaswamy, a Lakeland resident, now a Computer Science and Economics major at Stanford University, has been awarded a Hunter Watson Memorial Fund Grant to support the business development of Alma, a college-exclusive online network where students can leverage the data of millions of other college students in order to best plan and optimize their college experience.
This new network gives students the ability to connect with fellow students and learn from their college experiences. The website offers data to help students intelligently select what classes to take, what clubs to join and offers a means for expanding their social connections.
Akshay’s company launched its website focusing on the Stanford campus and in just three weeks gained more than one thousand users. The Hunter Watson grant will be used to cover server costs for the rapidly-expanding network, as well as to establish representatives on other college campuses in order to expand Alma’s online services to California universities before expanding to additional schools nationwide.
Akshay is a graduate of Lakeland High School in Lakeland, New York. He was the first student from this small town to be accepted to Stanford University. With no one from his home town to seek out for advice on entering his freshman year he came up with the concept of a social-academic network where students could solicit advice from their peers. He used his education and background in computer science to develop and launch the online service Alma, located at almacampus.com.
The grant award is being made by the Hunter Brooks Watson Memorial Fund, a non-profit fund established by friends and colleagues in memory of Hunter Watson. Hunter was about to enter his junior year at Syracuse University when he died tragically as a passenger in an automobile accident in the summer of 2016.
These competitive grants are awarded to students between the ages of 16 and 25 who have demonstrated a strong talent and interest in areas that can help benefit society today but who lack the necessary funding to achieve their goals. The grants are awarded in areas in which Hunter Watson had worked, including music, performing arts, entrepreneurship and computer technology.
More information about the Hunter Watson Memorial Fund and links for supporting the Fund’s grant projects, are available on its website at hunterwatson.org.
