Last month, junior Shayla He was nominated for a Hollywood Music in Media Award (HMMA) in the Original Recording category. The HMMAs honor up-and-coming independent artists in a wide variety of categories. Shayla, who is a member of the upper school show choir Downbeat, attended the Hollywood Music in Media Academy’s award ceremony earlier this month in Hollywood, where she had the opportunity to see performances by Grammy winners Charles Fox and Diane Warren. Celebrities including Tom Hanks were also in attendance.
Harker seniors Annmaria Antony, Brian Chen, Krish Maniar and Sarah Fatima Mohammed were recently named semifinalists in the 2022-23 Coca-Cola Scholars Program. They were among just over 1,500 students selected from more than 91,000 applicants. Following an application review process, 250 of these semifinalists will go on to become regional finalists, 150 of whom will be named Coca-Cola Scholars and receive a $20,000 scholarship. The Coca-Cola Scholars Program is the country’s largest corporate-sponsored scholarship program, and has provided more than $81 million in scholarships since it was founded in 1986. Last year Dawson Chen ’22 was named one of the 150 nationwide Coca-Cola Scholars.
Last week, TuffToy founders Rohan Gorti, Arin Jain and Zubin Khera, all grade 12, were named the winners of the California DECA Business Pitch Challenge. Over the summer, the three won the National Pitch Competition in Chicago for their energetic and creative pitch of TuffToy, which sells durable, high-quality dog toys. Each of the students will receive a trophy for placing in the top three.
Upper school debate teacher Greg Achten was recently elected to the executive board of the National Debate Coaches Association. All members of the organization are eligible to vote for the nine-member board. It is a national organization dedicated to supporting best practices in the debate community. The organization hosts one of the national championships and supports new programs with debate curriculum and research support. Achten’s years of community service, especially his expertise in running tournaments, were contributors to his election success. Additional details can be found at the NDCA website.
Arushi Sharma, grade 11, recently received a Congressional Silver Medal Award, one of the highest honors for civilian youths. The award honors young people for their service and achievements. Sharma was recognized for her work with a number of community organizations during the last few years, including Compassion for Seniors, which puts on musical performances for patients in Bay Area memory care facilities. She also organized efforts to send care packages to support caregivers and patients during the COVID-19 pandemic and mentored students for the organization Inclusive World, which provides skill development and employment opportunities for the differently abled.
Rory Hu, grade 7, was today announced as a top award winner in the 2022 Broadcom MASTERS competition, taking home the $10,000 Department of Defense STEM Talent Award. Her project for the competition studied how tea polyphenols and caffeine may help honeybees improve their learning and memory capabilities, as well as mitigate the harm from pesticides. More about Hu and her project can be found on her project page at the Society for Science website.
As one of the 30 finalists, Hu will receive a $500 prize and is eligible to win one of several top prizes, totaling more than $100,000. The finals are scheduled for this fall.
—-
Sept. 8, 2022
Yesterday, eight Harker students were named top 300 scholars in the 2022 Broadcom MASTERS competition, one of the country’s top middle school science competitions. The students were chosen from more than 1,800 applicants, and were among the top 10 percent at science fairs affiliated with the Society for Science.
Ninth graders Ava Bhowmik, Gupta Disha, Sofia Shah, Tanvi Sivakumar, Jonathan Szeto and Kallie Wang; eighth grader Jayden Liu; and seventh grader Rory Hu each will receive a $125 prize and are eligible to become top 30 finalists, who will be announced Sept. 21. Finalists will then be chosen for a variety of awards, totaling more than $100,000 in prizes.
On Oct. 21, the 2022 installment of TEDx Harker School took place at Nichols Hall, attended by hundreds of students. In addition to listening to the lineup of speakers, students enjoyed refreshments, vendor and activity booths, and socializing both before and after the speaker appearances.
The evening’s first speaker was veteran tech evangelist Guy Kawasaki, formerly of Apple and now of Canva. Kawasaki shared several important lessons he learned over his long career, such as not to worry too early on about discovering a passion. “I’m 68 years old. Three years ago, I discovered podcasts,” he said. “Now podcasts are my passion.” Other important lessons he imparted to the students were to build things they would want to use and break into a chosen field any way they can, using the example of Jane Goodall, who began working at the Leakey Foundation due to her secretarial skills.
Up next was Harker speech and debate teacher Scott Odekirk, who talked about society’s relationship to death and how it should be improved to become a “full, empathetic and community-based relationship,” he said after the event. Odekirk shared his own experience being in close proximity to this unique trauma with the death of his first wife. While in support groups, he met others who had similar experiences, including armed services veterans and health care workers. He then asked the audience to reflect on the ways mourning, as well as mourners, are treated. “My ultimate ask is for everyone to think about the way that we can make mourning more central to our community relationships,” he said.
Senior Arissa Huda, the final speaker for the evening, spoke on what she believed to be ineffective uses of empathy and how it could also be used to improve quality and length of life. Huda explained that “empathy in the mainstream is ineffective and our progress is stagnated as a result through performative activism, for example,” she said after the event. She also used health care as an example of how empathy can be effective, noting that doctors’ enactment of empathy results in better patient care plans, which in turn leads to improved quality and length of life for their patients. In closing, Huda shared how the community “could implement genuine and authentic empathy into our lives,” she said.
13 Harker singers were recently named members of the California Choral Directors Association (CCDA) Coastal Region Honor Choir. Seniors Ava Arasan, Aria Jain, Sukrit Kalsi and Anika Pandey; juniors Arjun Gurjar, Shayla He, Katelyn Hsu, Miki Mitarai and Arushi Sharma; sophomore Hasini Namala; and freshmen Helen Gu, Charlotte Ludlow and Aditya Ramanathan will spend the next several weeks readying their repertoire for a special performance at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in November.
Harker’s Board of Fellows kicked off its year Saturday night by hosting a special Head of School Gathering with Brian Yager, head of school, and invited members of Harker’s community of entrepreneurs and venture investment professionals, including numerous Harker alumni who have founded their own companies, to attend. Yager explained to the nearly 200 guests in attendance that the purpose of the gathering was “to recognize the outstanding achievements our business and entrepreneurship (B.E.) and economics students and teachers,” and to make a special announcement about the establishment of The Harker Venture Investment Initiative and associated Mehta Scholar Program.
Kelly Horan, assistant upper school division head, gave an overview of the outstanding achievements of Harker’s B.E. and economics programs, and then students and teachers were presented certificates of commendation by members of the Harker Board of Fellows for their hard work, preparation and achievement winning all three of the national competitions they participated in over the past few months.
Following the students’ recognition, Joe Rosenthal, executive director of strategic initiatives, announced the establishment of The Harker Venture Investment Initiative and the associated Mehta Scholar Program. Rosenthal explained that the initial funding has been specifically provided to create The Harker Venture Investment Pool. Harker’s advanced B.E. and economics students will have the opportunity to work with experienced venture investment professionals and entrepreneurs to make early-stage investments, primarily in alumni-founded companies.
The Venture Investment Initiative will leverage and engage Harker parents, alumni, alumni parents and students who are passionate about entrepreneurship and venture investment and will provide a strategic ecosystem to support alumni-founded companies and possibly other startups within the Harker network.
The funding for the Venture Investment Pool will come from the Mehta Endowment in Support of Scholarships and Entrepreneurship and by a few other donors making gifts specifically for this purpose. Rosenthal said, “Neil and Jasheen Mehta have given $5 million to establish their endowment, and in addition have generously offered to match every dollar that the community contributes.”
The Capital Fund by matching those contributions to increase their endowment up to an additional $5 million. If $5 million is raised for the Capital Fund, the Mehtas’ original endowment would become $10 million.” See the full story on the Mehta Endowment.
For more information, contact Harker’s Advancement department at advancement@harker.org.
Last weekend, at the 14th annual Math Prize for Girls competition, held at MIT, junior Olivia Xu (pictured, center) placed 11th out of 240 competitors, earning a $300 prize, and junior Catherine Li received an honorable mention. As top 36 placers, Xu and Li are eligible to compete in the Math Prize Olympiad.
Invitations to the competition were extended to the top 300 girls who participated in last year’s American Math Competition (AMC). Competitors were tasked with answer 20 short-answer questions in two-and-a-half hours.
The event, which was emceed by Nitya Mani ’15, who is now a Ph.D. student at MIT, also included a game night and a campus tour and admissions talk for prospective students.