Harker rising seniors Rohan Gorti, Arin Jain and Zubin Khera won the top prize of $20,000 yesterday in the 2022 INCubatoredu National Pitch Competition. Held in Chicago, the event featured the top five teams from around the country pitching businesses to compete for funding from a board of investors. The students’ business is TuffToy, which creates and sells high-quality, durable dog toys, and was pitched through a 10-minute video presentation. “Good day to be an Eagle, and a huge milestone for our incubator program,” said business and entrepreneurship teacher and team advisor Michael Acheatel.
Last week, rising sophomore Ethan Wang took fifth place out 184 competitors in the men’s division III foil competition at the USA Fencing National Championships and July Challenge in Minneapolis. A fencer since age 10, Wang also took bronze in Y14 men’s foil at the Silicon Valley Regional Junior Circuit/Regional Junior Circuit in April. This most recent performance was a significant one for Wang, who bounced back after struggling with a knee injury.
The National Merit Scholarship Corporation issued its final list of 2022 National Merit winners today, identifying 2022 graduates Kate Olsen, Vienna Parnell and Bodhisatta Saha as winners of college-sponsored scholarships. Congratulations to all 13 of Harker’s 2022 National Merit scholarship winners!
June 2, 2022:
Catherine He ’22 was named a winner of a National Merit Scholarship yesterday in the third round of winners in the 2022 National Merit Scholarship Program, becoming the 10th winner from the Class of 2022. The scholarships awarded in this round were financed by US colleges and universities and awarded by officials from the sponsor colleges to finalists who plan to attend the institution providing the scholarship. He’s scholarship was provided by the University of Southern California. The next and final round of National Merit Scholarship winners will be announced July 11.
May 11, 2022:
Today, seniors Alice Feng, Arnav Gupta, Victoria Han, Rishab Parthasarathy, Sasvath Ramachandran and William Zhao were named winners of $2,500 scholarships in the 2022 National Merit Scholarship Program. These awards were granted to finalists who, according to NMSC, possessed “the strongest combination of accomplishments, skills and potential for success in rigorous college studies.”
The next winners announcement is scheduled for June.
Apr. 27, 2022
Seniors Cady Chen, Irene Yuan and Emily Zhou were among the first round of 2022 National Merit Scholars announced today. All 1,000 winners in this round, selected from those who reached the finalist level in this year’s competition, received corporate-sponsored scholarships. All three of the Harker winners were awarded scholarships sponsored by Nvidia Corporation.
The National Merit Scholarship Corporation will announce more winners over the next few months until the final list of winners is revealed in July. This story will be updated as additional Harker winners are announced.
In May, recent graduate Brooklyn Cicero was selected to be featured in the Global Online Academy’s 2021-22 Catalyst Exhibition Showcase. Cicero’s presentation on the unique mental health challenges faced by teens of color was one of more than 500 submitted for inclusion in the exhibition; just over 20 were published.
The Global Online Academy, of which Harker has been a member school since 2012, offers a wide variety of online learning opportunities to member schools all over the world. It holds the Catalyst Exhibition every year to highlight how GOA students use the ideas they have learned in their course work.
Yesterday, the Harker team comprising rising seniors Rohan Gorti, Arin Jain and Zubin Khera was named a top five finalist in the 2022 INCubatoredu National Pitch Competition. Student teams from across the country join this contest every year by pitching their businesses to compete for funding, and finalists earn the opportunity to pitch to a board of investors. The trio’s business is TuffToy, a maker and seller of high-quality, durable dog toys, which they pitched by submitting a 10-minute video presentation. They will travel to Chicago in July for the final portion of the competition.
Earlier today, the Harker team of recent graduates Zach Clark, Harsh Deep, Shahzeb Lakhani and Rohan Thakur won the 2022 National Economics Challenge, held in New York City, becoming the first team in school history to do so. They later defeated China in an online match to become International Economics Champions. The final round of the national competition consisted of a two-hour quiz bowl between the top four teams. The full broadcast of the Quiz Bowl, hosted by CNBC, is available on YouTube.
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May 25, 2022
Harker’s National Economics Challenge team has reached the finals! Zach Clark, Harsh Deep, Shahzeb Lakhani and Rohan Thakur will trek to New York City in June for the final stage of this year’s competition as one of the final four teams. This same team took first place in April at the California Economics Challenge. Each stage of the competition tests students’ understanding of micro- and macroeconomics as well as knowledge of current world economies. The competition started at the state level, which was followed by a national 45-question quiz. Teams that moved on to the semifinals then created a case study to determine the final four teams.
Felix Chen, grade 9, was named a semifinalist in the 2022 Profile in Courage Essay Contest for his profile of William Byron Rumford, the first Black American to be elected to public office in Northern California. Each year, the contest invites high school students to write a profile on an elected official who demonstrated courage in the face of opposition from society, interest groups and political parties, echoing John F. Kennedy’s work in his book, “Profiles in Courage.” Nearly 2,500 essays were submitted for this year’s contest, with 25 recognized as winners, finalists, semifinalists or honorable mentions.
Harker upper and middle school VEX Robotics teams earned many awards competing in VEX Robotics Competition (also known as VEX VRC) events, beginning in October. VEX VRC is the largest and fastest growing robotics program in the world where teams compete in three areas: tournament-style, robot skills competition and judged awards.
The nine-month long season culminated with three important events: the Signature NorCal in February, the California State Championships in March and the VEX Robotics World Championship in May.
Juniors Amrita Pasupathy and Nidhya Shivakumar, sophomore Claire Su, and Kaitlyn Su, grade 9, were Division Champions at the VEX Robotics World Championships and finished 14th among 818 teams in the Robot Skills Competition. Over the course of the season, they were three-time tournament champions, two-time tournament finalists, won two Excellence Awards (the highest award given to the top all-around team) and won two other awards (Design, Judges) at local events.
Sophomores Sriram Bhimaraju, Zachary Blue and Jordan Labio won the Excellence Award at the California State Championships. They also won the Think Award at the World Championships and finished 21st in the Robot Skills Competition (among 818 teams). They also placed second in Robot Skills and won the Think Award at the NorCal Signature event. At other local events, they were named the Robot Skills Champion four times, tournament finalists twice and won a Design Award (awarded to the team with the best engineering design process).
Robert Costin and Ramit Goyal, both grade 10, qualified for the World Championships with their strong showing in the Robot Skills Competition at the California State Championships. They were the Tournament Champions at the RoboLabs December event in Dublin.
Risa Chokhawala, Orion Ghai, Rohan Goyal, Ayden Grover and Krishna Muddu, all grade 7 were division finalists at the middle school VEX Robotics World Championships. They won the Think Award at the middle school California State Championships in Sacramento and were also finalists at the NorCal Signature event. Their season concluded with a tournament championship, and an Innovate Award at local events.
Another team of seventh graders — Brandon Labio, Aaron Luo, Trisha Shivakumar and Nathan Yee — won the Design Award at the World Championships and finished 10th among 508 teams in Robot Skills. They were also Robot Skills champions and won the Think Award at the middle school California State Championships. Over the course of the season, they also won one tournament championship, one Robot Skills championship and an Excellence Award at local events.
The upper school and middle school speech and debate teams have had great second-semester results at major end-of-year championships.
At the elite Upper School Tournament of Champions, Harker experienced success in a number of events. Students have to place highly at regular season tournaments to even qualify to compete. Recent graduate Anshul Reddy was a finalist in Lincoln-Douglas debate, making him second overall in the nation! Carol Wininger, grade 11, and Max Xing, grade 10, were in the finals of the public forum debate silver division. Michelle Jin, grade 11, was second in extemporaneous speaking. Rahul Mulpuri, grade 11, finished in the semis of Lincoln-Douglas, as did Class of 2022 member William Chien in extemporaneous and Dyllan Han, grade 11, in original oratory. Arissa Huda, grade 11, and Ariav Misra, grade 10, advanced in congressional debate.
The middle school team also shined at their division of the Tournament of Champions. Joy Hu, grade 8, was the national champion in extemporaneous speaking and Sofia Shah, grade 8, was the Lincoln-Douglas debate champion! Pavitra Kasthuri, grade 8, was in the finals of both extemporaneous speaking and impromptu. Hu was also in the finals of impromptu. Shloka Chawla, grade 8, and seventh graders Ameera Ramzan, Phoebe Lee and Tarush Gupta were also in impromptu elimination rounds. Evan Yuan, grade 7, was in congressional debate elimination rounds. Danielle Steinbach, grade 8, and Sanjith Senthil, grade 7, advanced in Lincoln-Douglas, as did the eighth grade public forum duo of Kairui Sun and Roshan Amurthur.
The upper school also had good results at the California State Speech tournament. As with all speech and debate tournaments, State is not divided by school classification, so it is one large pool for all those who participate. Sara Wan, grade 11, was second in impromptu speaking, Zubin Khera, grade 11, was fifth in original oratory and William Chien ’22 was in finals of extemporaneous speaking. Austina Xu, grade 11, was in the semifinals of oratorical interpretation and Dyllan Han was also in semifinals of original oratory.
There is one last event for the upper school speech and congressional debaters, as well as the middle school team, this June at the National Speech & Debate Association Championships. The only result that has been released ahead of time is that William Chien was named the California Coast District Student of the Year for his excellent performances and positive impact on the larger speech and debate community. The coaches are very proud of the hard work put in by all of the students.
Harker had 56 medalists, including two perfect scores — by eight graders Joy Hu and Ananya Pradhan — in the 2022 National French Contest. More than 100 Harker middle and upper school students took part in the contest, which is held each year by the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF). The contest consists of a written exam taken at various levels. Students and teachers held a special awards ceremony to mark the occasion.