Simon Vizithum

Simon is 20, studying Applied Mathematics at UNC Chapel Hill with a minor in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, and dual-enrolled at Duke through the Robertson Scholars Program. He spent part of his childhood in a small town in Costa Rica, where his family befriended a farmer named Ana; more than a decade later they still text on WhatsApp about her avocado trees and the price of chicken feed. He also spent a summer working in the Mississippi Delta, an experience he credits with grounding him in the plainest version of human connection: people who don't have it figured out, trying anyway, alongside you.

Frustrated that his scholarship program had no way to find or reconnect with past scholars, he used AI as a coding partner to build a searchable alumni directory with secure logins, launched it, and woke up the next morning to a string of thank-you messages. It's a small, concrete example of the thing he wants more of: technology used to strip away the friction that keeps people from finding each other, without pretending the technology is the point.