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(Summer 2026) – Daniel Montejano, a SMART Scholar and graduating senior from Stuart Hall High School, has been hustling before he could do long division. As the oldest of three children born to parents who crossed la frontera in search of the American Dream, Daniel was raised on two core principles: an unyielding curiosity and a strong work ethic. This year, guests at SMART’s annual fundraising event had the privilege of hearing him share his journey as the evening’s keynote speaker.

Daniel’s love of learning showed up early and stubbornly. By age three, he was already finding his way into his father’s desktop computer, “breaking” it by flipping the screen orientation or inverting the colors, then bargaining his way into screen time by solving Khan Academy math problems he’d been taught were video games. On his fifth birthday, he made a bet with his dad: if he could perfectly recite his times tables by age five and a half, he’d earn an iPad. He enlisted his mother as a secret tutor and won the bet handily.

That same hunger for knowledge followed Daniel to Spring Valley Science School, where his teacher, Ms. Courtney, noticed how starved he was for new challenges and suggested he join SMART’s summer program. It was there, making ice cream in a Ziploc bag and learning about molecules between rounds of flinging chocolate milk at his friends, that Daniel found a place built for kids like him.

That summer also marked a turning point. When his school announced a chocolate sale to fund a class nature trip, Daniel realized most of his extended family lived too far away to buy from him. His mother encouraged him to sit with his SMART classmates instead of running off to play during breaks, and watching them sell slime and trade Pokémon cards gave him an idea. He took that same energy to a corner of Market Street in San Francisco and sold over 1,000 chocolate bars in two weeks, chanting “Chocolates for sale! One dollar each!” to passersby. It was the beginning of his family’s twelve-year relationship with SMART.

Daniel went on to attend Stuart Hall for Boys, where, for much of his time there, he was the only Latino student in his grade. SMART became his cultural home base, a place where he didn’t have to explain his background or bridge two different worlds. With encouragement from his SMART advisors and his tutor, Oscar, Daniel applied for and became a four-year recipient of the Jack Kent Cooke Young Scholar Award, which covered his high school tuition and opened doors to summer programs at Northwestern, UCLA, Vanderbilt, and a trip to Peru, his mother’s home country.

High school brought new pressures. Daniel described trying to be the “ideal” son, brother, and student, building separate “modes” for himself, Business Mode, Swimmer Mode, Family Mode, that he believed made him stronger but ultimately became exhausting to maintain. He burned out repeatedly during a demanding junior year of IB coursework and extracurriculars. SMART was there as those pressures mounted: his advisor, Andrea, stayed with him past 11PM on application nights, helping him work through stress and self-doubt.

“My dad always told me: if you shoot for the moon, you’ll hit the stars,” Daniel said. “But with SMART’s help, we realized we could actually aim for the moon itself.”

This fall, Daniel will attend Stanford University to study Mechanical Engineering, to become the first in his family to earn a college degree. Reflecting on his path, he credited SMART not just as a program, but as a family that taught his own family how to navigate a system that wasn’t built for them. He closed his speech with a message to his parents: gratitude for their sacrifice, their love, and their belief in him, “cuando solo era un niño con una caja de chocolates,” when he was just a kid with a box of chocolates.

“I’m no longer just an ‘iPad kid’ or a kid in a navy puffer jacket,” Daniel said. “I’m an engineer in the making, and I’m finally flying free.”