This story was submitted by Sofe Jalil, grade 10.
From Aug. 29-30, more than 80 students from the Class of 2029 participated in Harker’s 12th annual DECA Launch. Through DECA Launch, frosh are introduced to the world of business and entrepreneurship and gain exposure to the tight-knit community DECA fosters.
“DECA Launch is important because it gives a good foundation for first year members to get a good idea of what DECA is, how they can get involved, what the community is like, and the chance to meet the officers. I think it’s a good starting out point and it really gets [students] excited about what DECA is,” said senior Amishi Gupta 12, chief executive officer.
After Friday’s opening ceremony, students participated in a campus-wide scavenger hunt. Students met with their assigned launch groups and were given clues leading them throughout campus. Each location was met with a different officer that provided the groups with unique tasks and riddles to solve. Some include choreographing a dance or even pouring water on an officer.
After the scavenger hunt, students gathered in the auditorium to listen to co-CEOs Gupta and senior Tanvi Sivakumar introduce the DECA program, giving details about conferences, study sessions and the overall commitment to DECA.
Following the introduction of DECA, junior Abby Sachse, VP of competitions, went over competitive events such as testing, roleplays and writtens along with the different DECA clusters. Abby discussed the mentorship program offered by Harker DECA and reflected on her experience with her former mentor, alumni Maya Affaki ‘25, describing how they developed a close relationship. Shortly afterward, Juston Glass, Harker DECA’s advisor, spoke about the various BE programs, including Harker TEDx, Oeconomia, Investing Club, Incubator and Career Connect. The day concluded with a dinner provided by Harker.
“I enjoyed the innovation challenge, especially figuring out what product we were going to present and listening to other people’s idea[s],” said Danya Arun, grade 9.
Saturday started with a talk by senior Celina Xu, who shared her experience in Harker’s incubator course, as well as Investing Club co-presidents Ronica Kahttri and Nicole Dean, both juniors, who then handed off to Abby Wang, Harker DECA’s director of testing, to talk about the competitive aspects of DECA. Students participated in a Kahoot quiz featuring sample DECA exam questions.
“I enjoyed the Innovation Challenge the most because it was fun to work as a team to come up with an idea,” said Navya Maddapudi, grade 9.
Harker DECA mentors later came in to evaluate the roleplay competition. While waiting for their turn, students used the break to refine their presentations in the Nichols Auditorium. Afterward, students reconvened in the auditorium for the alumni panel, featuring Claire Miao ‘24, Edward Huang ‘24, Andrew Au ‘24, Cynthia Wang ’24 and Maya Affaki ’25.
”Especially like with the people I was judging, they were very eager to hear their feedback and very eager to know how to do better, especially because this was their first role play. I found it very positive because I think the incoming first year’s for DECA are very eager to learn and grow,” said mentor and role play judge Liana Barooah, grade 10.
As the panel took place, parents began arriving to observe the Innovation Challenge. Students then began presenting, and shortly after, dinner was served with desserts while judges calculated both roleplays and Innovation Challenge scores.
Winners are as follows (all grade 9):
Roleplay Tournament:
1st Place: Rohan Ahuja and Jacob Cao
2nd Place: Leo Hoffmann, Ranvir Tyagi
3rd Place: Jacob Dorfman, Usinish Chatterjee
Innovation Challenge:
Best Overall: Gauri Badgujar, Navya Maddipudi, Rhea Sharma, Aanya Solanki, Ravi Saxena, Aaron Lau, Arul Logesh, Joshua Woon, Ranvir Tyagi
Honorable Mention: Keji Yuan, Andy He, Patrick Jiang, Annika Pendse, Mahika Vinnakota, Isabella Wang, Kyle Li, Addie Firman, Leo Hoffmann
Best Presentation: Sarah Thiru, Srikrishna Kataru, Aditya Gupta, Reyansh Gupta, Rohan Ahuja, Siddharth Hosakere, Iris Wang, Rohan Kaushal, Avni Sharma
Most Innovative: Danya Arun, Anusha Kotalwar, Sabrina Shun, Allison Ishisaka, Shivam Sharma, Jun Wee, Ethan Weyn, Aiden Lin, Ethan Chen