Last weekend, 55 students attended Harker DECA’s sixth annual Launch event, which introduced prospective members to DECA and the Harker School’s business and entrepreneurship department. Students were given an overview of the upcoming DECA competitive season through alumni panels, detailed lectures, guest speakers, mock competitions and interactive activities.
“In my opinion, the Innovation Challenge, which we revamped the last competitive season, now provides a perfect opportunity for our new members to become familiarized with the writing of an introductory business plan, which is one of the key aspects of competition at DECA conferences,” said Harker DECA co-CEO Phil Han, grade 12. “The biggest way in which DECA Launch improved from last year is definitely the increased amount of time that we are allocating towards the Innovation Challenge. I’m very excited to see what the new members will come up with this year!”
On Saturday morning, attendees met the chapter advisors and officers in the Nichols Hall atrium, while enjoying breakfast from Noah’s Bagels. They then went into the auditorium for the Student Opening Ceremony, where California DECA president Elisa Zhang and former Harker DECA vice president of public relations Riya Gupta ’19 shared how DECA impacted their high school experiences and sparked their passions for business and entrepreneurship.
Afterward, the officers held an ice-breaker game of competitive rock, paper, scissors before Bryan Zhang, grade 11, the director of written events, introduced the Innovation Challenge. Students divided themselves into teams of six, and throughout the weekend, each group, under the guidance of a mentor, brainstormed and developed a product or idea relating to this year’s theme of sustainability to present at the closing ceremony.
“I thoroughly enjoyed the whole mentoring process and the opportunity to bond with the grade below me. It was rewarding to be involved with the operations side of this event and be able to recreate the eye-opening experience that I had the year before for a whole new group of students,” said Alivia Li, grade 10, director of roleplays. “I think that Launch provides a unique setting for students to meet upperclassmen and gain exposure to the high school while still learning about DECA’s purpose. These students have a bright future ahead of them, and I’m excited to observe their growth during the next school year.”
Next, the attendees bonded with their Innovation Challenge teams through a Scavenger Hunt, in which they were asked to follow a list of riddles to find the Harker DECA officers, who were located around campus. The exercise allowed them to explore the upper school campus and strengthen their friendships with their teammates.
The students enjoyed pizza from Pizza My Heart for lunch while working on their innovation plans and, in the afternoon, officers gave short presentations introducing the different competitive clusters: business management and administration, marketing, hospitality and tourism, finance, and entrepreneurship.
On Sunday morning, the students briefly worked on their Innovation Challenge ideas. Then Harker student Mahi Kolla, grade 12, founder of The Minty Boutique and co-CEO of Harker DECA, shared her own experiences with creating her company through the Harker Incubator program. Afterward, Juston Glass, chapter advisor, presented on Harker’s various business, economics and entrepreneurship programs. After a live roleplay demonstration by Li, Zhang hosted a Kahoot! (a live game collaboration site) covering the business administration core exam topics. Next, the competitions team introduced the various competitive events, followed by a graphic design workshop by Kolla. Then, students practiced their Innovation Challenge presentations while enjoying burritos.
“DECA seems like an amazing opportunity to gain skills and knowledge which will help me in the future and, most importantly, in the real world,” said Grant Sims, grade 9.
One of the focal points of the launch was the roleplay tournament, which occurred on Sunday afternoon. Mentors acquainted students with the expectations and the process of competing in roleplays, and students then paired up and competed in their first competitive event by preparing and presenting a hospitality roleplay to the judges.
Following the roleplay tournament, attendees were given extra time to practice their presentations for the Innovation Challenge before parents arrived for dinner, the alumni panel and the closing ceremony. Students and parents had the opportunity to ask seven alumni, Chirag Aswani ’15, Riya Chandra ’17, Ankur Karwal ’16, Sidhart Krishnamurthi ’15, Gaurav Kumar ’14, Haley Tran ’17 and Lucas Wang ’17, questions about DECA’s impact on their high school and college experiences, as well as their current careers.
Next, teams pitched their Innovation Challenge ideas to the judges, who scored each team on feasibility, presentation, innovation and teamwork. While the judges discussed the final scores, the students and parents watched a recap video of the weekend. Finally, Launch ended with the announcement of the Roleplay Tournament and Innovation Challenge winners, as well as closing speeches from Glass, Han and Kolla.
“As a new student, DECA Launch really helped me make new friends and feel more welcome to the Harker community,” said attendee Sara Wan, grade 9.
Harker DECA is looking forward to welcoming all the new and returning members and is excited to begin the upcoming school year with an extraordinary community of future leaders.
“I was extremely impressed by this year’s Launch attendees and cannot wait to see them grow during the competitive season,” said Glass.
Results of the competition are below. All students named are grade 9.
Roleplay Tournament:
First Place: Rahul Mulpuri, Ethan Wong
Second Place: Zain Vakath, Rohan Gorti
Thirsd Place: Zeke Weng, Armaan Thakker
Innovation Challenge:
Most Feasible: Matthew Lau, Rohan Bhowmik , Kyle Chang, Raj Kalra, John Cracraft, Alex Lan
Best Presentation: BB Ajlouny, Jonathan Mo, Grant Sims, Robert Zhang, Smrithi Sambamurthy, Pelin Unsal
Best Innovation: Ada Praun-Petrovic, Natalie Gergov, Gary Ding, Richard Zhang, Anthony Zhao, Aneesha Asthana
Harker DECA is an international competitive business organization that prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs in four fields of business: marketing, finance, hospitality and management. Our DECA chapter integrates classroom instruction, applies learning, connects to business and promotes competition in order to prepare the next generation to be academically prepared, community oriented, professionally responsible and experienced leaders
Gianna Chan is the communications director for Harker DECA.
Three women from Harker were honored by the Davidson Institute in its annual awards. Natasha Maniar ’19 and Cynthia Chen, grade 12, were named 2019 Davidson Fellow Laureates, while Ruhi Sayana ’19 received an honorable mention. Maniar’s award is in the technology category, while Chen’s and Sayana’s awards are in the science category. The two fellows each will receive a $50,000 scholarship and a trip to Washington, D.C., to receive their awards.
Chen’s project is titled “Decoding Neural Networks: Novel Computational Methods to Discover Anti-Tumor B Cell Receptor Binding Motifs.” Her Davidson summary reads: “Cynthia’s study is the first to provide a framework for interpreting the motif patterns learned by deep learning models trained on protein sequence data. Deep neural networks have achieved great success in diagnosing diseases, but they remain black boxes: scientists are often unable to clearly explain how a model arrives at its decision or which features matter most. To address this, Cynthia developed computational methods to uncover the patterns learned by a deep neural network that predicts cancer types based on B cell receptor (BCR) sequences. By decoding this model, she identified and validated 65 tumor-specific BCR binding motifs for 13 cancer types, a discovery that could guide future synthesis of antibody drugs for targeted cancer treatments.” Read more about Chen’s efforts here.
Maniar’s project is titled “MapAF: Deep Learning to Improve Therapy of Complex Human Heart Rhythm Abnormalities” and, according to the Davidson site, she has “developed a computational approach to identify sources of atrial fibrillation (AF). Despite affecting more than 33 million people worldwide, diagnostic imaging of electrical conduction through the heart remains relatively subjective and continues to rely heavily on visual interpretation by experts. Natasha addressed this as a two-fold problem. She first developed an algorithm to analyze the heart’s chaotic electrical signals and then interpreted those results using her computational tool. Her code identified the AF sources inside the heart with greater accuracy than trained experts. This tool improves AF treatment by streamlining and standardizing the catheter ablation procedure, making it globally accessible.” Read more about Maniar here.
Sayana’s project, titled “Precision Care for Leukemia: Discovery of Novel Therapeutics for High-Risk ALL via Epigenetic and Computational Transcriptome Profiling,” already earned her one of the 40 finalist slots in the Regeneron Science Talent Search in early 2019. Maniar also was a finalist. In addition, Sayana was a grand prize winner in the Synopsys Silicon Valley Science and Technology Championship, held in March. Chen was also a grand prize winner. Last but not least, Sayana earned a $10,000 scholarship as an Intel Foundation Young Scientist from the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Read more about Sayana here and search the names of all three at news.harker.org to see the many science prizes these exceptional women have earned in their budding careers!
Harker’s DECA officers traveled to Santa Cruz last week for their annual retreat. The group focused on developing leadership skills, bonding with each other and preparing for the upcoming school year. Activities included solving an escape room, cooking within the sub-teams of executives, operations, competitions and public relations in an Iron Chef-like competition, some bonfire and beach time, as well as various leadership development activities throughout the days and evenings. Overall, the trip allowed officers the opportunity to get to know each other, grow together as a team, and prepare for DECA Launch and upcoming competitions during the school year.
Two Harker alumni were given Dean’s Awards for Academic Excellence by Wharton/University of Pennsylvania School of Undergraduates this spring. Savi Joshi and Vedant Thyagaraj, who both graduated from Harker in 2015, received the awards.
Joshi was awarded for service to the University of Pennsylvania and/or the greater Philadelphia community. “Savi was recognized with this award for her tremendous efforts in teaching over 150 people about healthy eating in the greater Philadelphia community,” said Lee Kramer, director of student life at Wharton.
“She worked with our Netter Center and the Vetri Community Partnership to create a program that allows undergraduates to learn healthy eating with accessible produce so that they in turn can then teach the local community and younger students about healthier eating,” he added. “During her time at Penn, Savi also served as the co-chair of the Wharton Alumni Relations Council and as a facilitator of the Wharton Roundtables, a peer-to-peer discussion group.
Thyagaraj, who graduated from Wharton’s life science management dual-degree program in May, was presented with the Dean’s Award for Innovation for his remarkable career at the school. His many achievements at Wharton included strong academic performance, serving as president of the Penn Undergraduate Biotechnology Society and acting as a research assistant for the Wharton Global Family Alliance. Along with fellow Penn/Wharton alumni, Thyagaraj also founded Ride-Health, a transportation technology company that provides low-income, elderly and disabled patients with transportation to medical care by integrating with ridesharing providers such as Uber and Lyft and other modes of transport. Ride-Health currently has 12 full-time employees and operates in 25 states.
“We are very proud of both Savi and Vedant!” said Kramer. “They have both accomplished so much here at Wharton and Penn and they leave a great legacy here. In addition to all of their accomplishments, they were amazing students and I really enjoyed working with both of them during their four years at Wharton.”
SportStars Magazine noted its top 75 athletes in the Bay Area, and two of Harker’s finest made the list: Ethan Hu, rising grade 12, for swimming, and Jarrett Anderson ’19 for volleyball.
Silicon Angle featured a very nice article about DoorDash, co-founded by Andy Fang ’10, with a link back to our profile on Fang in December 2018.
Annie Ma, rising grade 12, had her poem, “And the Train Went On,” published by The Skinny Poetry Journal.
CalHiSports, an independent reporter on high school sports, noted Harker had some exceptional teams this year. In a nice write up, the site awarded them statewide all-sports honors for the 2018-19 school year for performances in several sports.
Harker had a group of visitors from New Zealand this year for the Harker Research Symposium. The hometown newspaper, the Wairarapa Times-Age, featured an article about the visit. See Harker News for more details on the visit.
The theme of the 2019 National Junior Classical League Convention was “apes non sunt solitaria natura” (“Bees are not of a solitary nature”). Harker students participating as members of the California delegation were certainly as busy as bees, attending workshops and contest sessions, assemblies and sporting events. In addition to helping California take the top place in the spirit competition for medium-size delegations, the students brought home the following top 10 places. (Note: Students compete at the grade and Latin level they just completed in June.)
Felix Chen, grade 6, Level 1/2:
2nd in Ancient Geography, Greek Life and Literature, Roman History
3rd in Classical Art, Hellenic History, Latin Literature, Mythology
4th in Latin Derivatives, Reading Comprehension
5th in Academic Heptathlon
6th in Mottoes, Roman Life
7th in Greek Derivatives
8th in Latin Grammar
9th in Latin Vocabulary, Overall Academics
Felix also played on the California Novice Certamen (quiz bowl) team, which placed seventh.
Tiffany Chang, grade 8, Level 2:
4th in Reading Comprehension
5th in Sight Latin Reading
9th in Latin Literature, Mottoes
10th in Classical Greek, Essay
Tiffany played on the third-place Open Certamen Intermediate team.
(Note: Open Certamen teams are made of players from various states.)
Rupert Chen, grade 8, Level 2:
2nd in Sight Latin Reading
3rd in Reading Comprehension
5th in Essay
6th in Greek Life and Literature
Rupert played on the third-place Open Certamen Advanced team.
Michelle Jin, grade 8, Level 2:
2nd in Latin Literature
4th in Mottoes, Sight Latin Reading
6th in Classical Art, Reading Comprehension
8th in Essay
Lauren Liu, grade 8, Level 2:
4th in Reading Comprehension
8th in Essay
Edward Sun, grade 8, Level 2:
6th in Reading Comprehension
Jeffrey Fung, grade 11, Level 5+:
2nd in Reading Comprehension Prose, Sight Latin Reading (Poetry)
3rd in Reading Comprehension Poetry
4th in Ancient Geography, Classical Art, Greek Life and Literature
5th in Latin Literature, Latin Vocabulary, Mottoes, Roman Life, 100 Meters Senior Boys Track
6th in Classical Greek, Hellenic History, Mythology
8th in Latin Grammar
9th in Academic Heptathlon, Roman History
10th in Greek Derivatives
Jeffrey also played on the California Advanced Certamen (quiz bowl) team, which placed eighth.
Kyle Li, grade 11, Level 5+:
2nd in Hellenic History
3rd in Classical Greek
5th in Greek Life and Literature, Mythology
6th in Reading Comprehension Prose
7th in Reading Comprehension Poetry
9th in Greek Derivatives
Harker alumna Denzil (Sikka) Eden ‘09 was honored this week as one of Silicon Valley Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 award winners for 2019. Eden earned many accolades while at Harker, including being named an Intel (now Regeneron) Science Talent Search semifinalist.
Eden earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT and an MBA from Harvard University. In between, she worked at Microsoft for three years while teaching computer science at Foothill College in Los Altos and San Francisco State University.
Eden was working for San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo as his office’s technology and innovation advisor until this month, when she delved full time into her startup, Smarty A.I., an artificial intelligence executive-assistant product. Read all about her in the SVBJ article!
Harker alumna Denzil (Sikka) Eden ‘09 was honored this week as one of Silicon Valley Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 award winners for 2019. Eden earned many accolades while at Harker, including being named an Intel (now Regeneron) Science Talent Search semifinalist.
Eden earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT and an MBA from Harvard University. In between, she worked at Microsoft for three years while teaching computer science at Foothill College in Los Altos and San Francisco State University.
Eden was working for San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo as his office’s technology and innovation advisor until this month, when she delved full time into her startup, Smarty A.I., an artificial intelligence executive-assistant product. Read all about her in the SVBJ article!
Harker alumna Denzil (Sikka) Eden ‘09 was honored this week as one of Silicon Valley Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 award winners for 2019. Eden earned many accolades while at Harker, including being named an Intel (now Regeneron) Science Talent Search semifinalist.
Eden earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT and an MBA from Harvard University. In between, she worked at Microsoft for three years while teaching computer science at Foothill College in Los Altos and San Francisco State University.
Eden was working for San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo as his office’s technology and innovation advisor until this month, when she delved full time into her startup, Smarty A.I., an artificial intelligence executive-assistant product. Read all about her in the SVBJ article!
This story originally appeared in the summer/spring 2019 issue of Harker Magazine.
Pauline Paskali teaches three courses at the upper school: regular and AP American Literature, and Genre Studies. Her love of language and literature are evident even in casual conversation, and she’s known not only for imparting that passion to her students, but for her warmth and kindness. But people may not know of her deep love for nature – “[its vastness] always challenges me and inspires me to carry on,” she says – or that she has two pet chickens, Clementine and Guinevere. Raised in Connecticut and Massachusetts, this East Coast transplant tells Harker Magazine a few more fun facts about herself.
What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever gotten? Let go of what is beyond your control.
What are you good at? I often find myself in the role of backup photographer at weddings and gatherings of friends and family. The distance and intimacy created by my DSLR lens enables me to capture something essential about the people I love.
What do you love most about your life? Most people have to go to work every day, but I still get to go to school. Who doesn’t love being in an environment full of curious and kind people, young and old?
What is something interesting about you that almost no one knows? I spent my junior year of high school living with a French family in a country house outside of Rennes. I discovered there my passion for walking and for butter.
Where is the one place in the world that you like to escape to? Whenever I need a reboot, I return to the place I spent my summers as a child, a tiny village in the rugged Pindus Mountains of northern Greece.
What is your most treasured object and why? Recently we discovered a book containing a poem my father had written when he was in his early 20s. No one in my family knew about his writing. Reading his verse brought back to life the young man who long ago reluctantly immigrated to America to assuage the pangs of hunger.