On Tuesday, Zoom CEO and Harker parent Eric Yuan made a special Q&A appearance for the Harker community. In a conversation with Brian Yager, Harker’s head of school, Yuan covered a range of topics, including how Zoom handled the sudden massive increase of users last year, the importance of a healthy company culture and lessons he has found helpful in his career.
Zoom, founded in 2011, was envisioned as a company primarily for enterprise and government customers. When the COVID-19 pandemic made working at home the new normal, Zoom was faced with a mass influx of new “consumer use” cases, Yuan said. The company suddenly faced an increase of 30 times the normal number of users, and employees worked tirelessly to prevent outages and improve the user experience.
“The usage is coming from all over the world, so that’s why our team, we were working extremely hard,” Yuan said. He recalled having as many as 19 Zoom meetings a day, and enduring “more sleepless nights than at any time in my career.”
Adapting Zoom to non-enterprise and non-government use also meant dealing with new security challenges. Inexperienced Zoom users, for instance, would sometimes mistakenly post Zoom meeting IDs to their social media accounts, inadvertently bringing in malicious users. “But we learned from that,” Yuan said. We doubled down, tripled down on privacy and security.”
He credited Zoom’s ability to weather these storms to the company’s culture. “As the CEO of the company, my number one priority is to think about everyday how to make sure our employees are happy,” he said. To this end, employees volunteer to organize events and initiatives, including reimbursements for employees who purchase books for themselves and their families. Investing in company culture, Yuan said, helped Zoom greatly when the company was at its busiest during the pandemic. “I did not receive any complaints,” he said. “All of our employees worked so hard around the clock, every day.”
In considering lessons that proved important over the course of his career, Yuan remembered his father’s advice to work hard and remain humble. He also recalled how important gratitude was to his grandmother. “That’s probably the number one thing that really matters from my perspective,” he said, adding that a lack of gratitude can lead to arrogance, which inhibits progress. “We’re all working very hard, and whenever we make progress, first of all we are so grateful for our customers’ support. I’m so grateful for our employees’ hard work. I think gratitude is extremely important for any leader, for any company, to make progress.”
Earlier this month, the Harker Research Club hosted a panel with Vikas Bhetanabhotla ‘14, Cynthia Chen ‘20, Anastasiya Grebin ‘18 and Ruhi Sayana ‘19, who spoke about their post-high school careers and offered advice on how to find research opportunities.
The panelists each shared what they had done after graduating from Harker and how the research they conducted as Harker students helped shape their current work. At Harker, Sayana, who currently works in a lab at Stanford University studying neurodegenerative diseases, had a significant interest in pediatric oncology before becoming interested in genetics. “When I was applying to labs at Stanford, I was trying to look at something at the intersection of pediatric disease and genetics, and that’s how I ended up at the lab that I am now,” she said. “So [my work at Harker] definitely informed it.”
Bhetanabhotla, who graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 2018 and now works at Palo Alto Networks, was heavily interested in machine learning. “My research was the intersection of cosmology with machine learning, so that research experience with machine learning really guided my interests through college,” he said. This carried through to his post-college career, as machine learning is now a part of his work at Palo Alto Networks
“In high school pretty much all of my research was wet lab, and I jumped around a lot,” said Grebin. “I did some plant science. I did some data set analysis for cancer mutations.” As a sophomore, she participated in a directed evolution project that “didn’t pan out,” but she now attends CalTech, “which is the place where directed evolution was essentially invented,” and her work now incorporates directed evolution to create viral constructs.
Most of Chen’s projects at Harker were in bioinformatics, which incorporated biology and computer science. Her work in that area earned her a spot as a finalist in the 2020 Regeneron Science Talent Search. She is now attending Harvard University and works in a lab at MIT, doing research to learn how to better explain how artificial intelligence models work. “I think the projects [I worked on at Harker] gave me a good starting point for figuring out what I wanted to explore further in college,” she said.
The panelists also offered advice on how to find research opportunities in high school. “It’s all about casting a wide net,” Bhetanabhotla said. “I knew I was interested in the astronomy area a little bit but I was also interested in biology potentially so I just emailed a lot of different professors.”
Sayana agreed. “You’re in high school,” she said. “This is the time to explore as much as you can, and if you’re reaching out to labs there’s a very high chance that a lot of people won’t respond to you, so the wider out you go, the better chance you’re going to have at getting a response.”
Chen recommended the approach of emailing research labs that seemed potentially interesting or open to taking on high school students, “because I didn’t really know specifically what I wanted to do in terms of research in high school because you’re exposed to so many different subjects.”
Grebin did much of her research in high school at Harker after school. “I kind of advocate for that path for at least the first couple of years before you decide to move on to working in a lab and doing slightly more in-depth research,” she said. “Simply because you have so much more ability to pick what you want to do. I miss being able to pick the project that I want to work on as an undergraduate.”
Late last month, Misha Ivkov ‘17 received the Mark Stehlik Alumni Undergraduate Impact Scholarship from the Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science (SCS), which “recognizes and supports SCS undergraduates whose drive for excellence extends beyond the classroom,” according to the CMU SCS website. The scholarship is awarded to students as they approach the end of their undergraduate career. “Awardees have demonstrated a desire to make a difference in SCS, the field of computer science and the world around them,” a news story posted on the website states.
According to the story, Ivkov’s drive was applied not only to his own studies but to teaching other students, for which he was awarded the Alan J. Perlis Undergraduate Student Teaching Award. He has served as a teacher’s assistant in three classes and co-developed a student-taught class to help students give technical interviews.
Harker students took top spots in the 2021 TEAMS (Tests of Engineering Aptitude, Mathematics and Science) competition, in which teams of students collaborate to solve real-world engineering problems. This year, TEAMS dispensed with a national finals event and issued scores based on state-level results.
Harker’s 11/12A team – juniors Harsh Deep, Alex Hu, Sasvath Ramachandran and Kailash Ranganathan – placed third nationally after taking first in California. Meanwhile, team 9/10A – sophomores Brian Chen, Riya Gupta, Stephen Xia and Sally Zhu – placed sixth in the nation overall.
After last year’s heartbreaking cancellation, the annual graduation ceremony returned to the Mountain Winery on Saturday to celebrate the Class of 2021’s accomplishments and formally conclude their high school years. Although strict safety protocols meant that only the seniors and their guests could attend, a livestream was set up so that the rest of the community could view the ceremony from home.
Following a brief welcome address by Butch Keller, upper school division head, co-valedictorians Daniel Wang and Claire Luo offered some parting words to their classmates. Wang expressed how privileged he felt to be a member of a senior class that had persevered through so much. Because of those challenges, he said, “We go forward with an even greater drive to brave new challenges and make precious memories that will last us a lifetime. We have been through a lot together. It is my honor to be your valedictorian.”
Luo voiced her thankfulness to the many people involved in both her journey and that of her classmates, including her parents “for their endless care and sacrifice,” Harker teachers “for going way above and beyond in supporting and inspiring us” and Harker administrators and staff “for making the last four years possible.
“Finally, thank you to my spectacular friends and to all of you, Class of 2021,” she continued, “for the love, laughter and life that made the last four years truly memorable.”
The Senior String Quintet, the first of the ceremony’s musical performers, then offered their rendition of Haydn’s “Adagio, from String Quartet No. 47 in F Minor,” followed by the Senior Graduation Chorus, who sang Dan Forrest’s “Always Something Sings.”
Roberta Wolfson ‘05, a lecturer in writing and rhetoric at Stanford University and this year’s keynote speaker, made boxes the theme of her speech, specifically “metaphorical boxes that we build for ourselves and others on a daily basis. Boxes that tell us what to say, how to act, what goals we should be striving for. Boxes that sometimes can end up boxing us in.” She asked the students to consider what boxes they have been placed into, a question that “motivated me to pursue a career as a scholar and educator of critical race studies and literary studies.” Witnessing the Class of 2021’s accomplishments, she said, made her feel “hopeful, because I know that you have the passion and the power to address these flaws and make the world stronger.”
Head of school Brian Yager, the final speaker for the day, encouraged the Class of 2021 to reflect on the ways humanity has successfully met challenges, one prime example being the increase in life expectancy. “There is no headline that reads 50,000 fewer Americans died from car crashes this year or 100,000 children didn’t die because their food was refrigerated. There’s a great lesson here,” he said. “Our attention and energy are easily captured by tragedy but it is not easily captured by the absence of it.” He concluded by noting the senior class’ resilience and growth in the face of unprecedented obstacles: “Class of 2021, this year has given you and all of us much by which we could have been overwhelmed. Today, though, we can celebrate the much that you have achieved. You have already begun to view your year as seniors as one of trial and challenge, but in a good way. You have been made stronger, wiser and hopefully kinder.”
The ceremony formally ended with the traditional release of a flock of doves, symbolizing the Class of 2021’s next adventure into the wider world.
Harker middle school math students had a series of successes this past spring. Angela Liu, grade 8, placed in the top 20 at the national Mathcounts competition, held May 8-10. Liu competed as one of four representatives from California, considered the most competitive state. California placed second overall in the competition. Liu was one of three Harker middle school students to reach the state finals, along with eighth graders Jacqueline Huang and Jonny Xue. Harker’s Mathcounts students were coached by Vandana Kadam, middle school math department chair, who was California team coach in 2020.
Mathcounts also hosts a video contest, in which Harker was a top four finalist. Eighth graders Jacqueline Huang, Juliana Li, Kashish Priyam and Sophia Zhu’s video, “Banking on Math,” was the first video Harker had ever submitted for the competition.
Earlier in spring, the 20th annual Diana Nichols Harker Math Invitational for grades 6-8, held March 21, was a highly successful event with 17 schools and about 432 contestants taking part in the individual and team contests. There were 79 competing and 15 non-competing teams for the team contest.
In individual competition at the sixth grade level, Haofang Zhu took first place, Claire Tian placed third and Sylvia Chen placed fourth. At the eighth grade level, Julian Li placed third and Aarush Vailaya, Agastya Ravuri and Jeremy Peng tied for fourth.
In team competition, Harker teams took the top three spots at the sixth grade level, with team 6A (Sylvia Chen, Risa Chokhawala, Rohan Goyal, Raeanne Li, Iona Liu, Aaron Luo and Claire Tian) placing first, 6C (Nyssa Kansal, Brandon Labio, Lucas Lum, Lily Peng, Sanjith Senthil, Sri Srinavasan and Graham Zhang) placing second and 6B (Audrey Hu, Shamik Khowala, Ridhan Randheri, Axel Szolusha, Nathan Yee, Haofang Zhu and Ellie Zhou) placing third. At the grade 7 level, Harker team 7A (Jaden Fu, Jessica Hu, Brenna Ren, Caden Ruan, Lily Shi, Kallie Wang and Tiffany Zhu) took third place. At the grade 8 level Harker Team 8A (Audrey Cheng, Neil Krishnan, Juliana Li, Kashish Priyam, Aarush Vailaya, Jessica Wang and Alex Zhong) placed second, while team 8A (Ainslie Chen, Tiffany Gu, Katerina Matta, Jeremy Peng, Agastya Ravuri, Max Zhai and Sophia Zhu) placed third.
Last Friday, middle school faculty were given an opportunity to tour the new middle school campus, which is being built at the former site of the preschool campus. Teachers were greeted by middle school division head Evan Barth and guided by facilities director Mike Bassoni, who led the group around the site and explained the features of the new buildings and helped them envision what the campus would look like when finished. Teachers had the opportunity to explore the new buildings and enjoyed getting an up-close look at their future classrooms.
From April 12 to May 6, Harker DECA members competed virtually in the annual International Career Development Conference (ICDC). With 46 competitors and two first place champions, Harker DECA had the best ICDC results in chapter history. An exceptional 12 finalists placed in the top 20 for the preliminary round. Out of those 12, eight finalists were in the top 10 final round.
“ICDC and just DECA in general are both very exciting. It allowed not just my team but the entire DECA community to come closer together. I am looking forward to another DECA season,” said Armaan Thakker, grade 10.
This year, Harker DECA introduced the DECA alumni coaches program to help students excel in their competitions. The officer team reached out to several competitively successful alumni and former officers including Aditi Ghalsasi ‘20, Mahi Kolla ‘20, Lucas Wang ‘17, Evan Cheng ‘20, Shania Wang ‘19, Riya Gupta ‘19, Rishi Dange ‘20, Radhika Jain ‘20 and Phil Han ‘20. Many of the alumni continued their education at top universities including the University of Southern California, New York University and University of Pennsylvania. Each alumni was assigned to a competitive team and was required to meet with them at least three times to prepare for their competitions. Overall the inaugural program dramatically improved the success of Harker DECA’s competitors this year at ICDC.
“I think one of the biggest factors that contributed to how far we got at ICDC was the fact that we had an alumni, Radhika, as our mentor. It was even more special for us personally because she had mentored us in her junior and senior year, so it was great to be able to work with her again. Even though we only met four times for about an hour each, her feedback was so helpful, and we could actually feel ourselves improving each time. I definitely feel like Emily [Zhou] and I wouldn’t have been able to get as far as we did without the alumni mentorship program,” said junior Emily Tan.
Due to the pandemic, ICDC was held virtually this year. For the preliminary round, competitors were asked to submit their presentations in video form to a portal. However, for the final round of competitions, members joined a Zoom call with a judge to perform their presentations live.
“ICDC was an incredible experience, and we were so excited to represent Harker during the final round of competition. Our previous rounds were recorded videos, so being able to present a live presentation in front of a judge was a thrilling experience, especially since this was our first year competing in DECA,” said sophomore Annmaria Antony.
Despite most of the conference being online, Harker DECA hosted a viewing party of the grand awards session on May 6. Members were invited to the Innovation Center on the upper school campus to watch the livestream of the ceremony and were given an opportunity to socialize with their peers in person. They enjoyed snacks while watching and Chipotle for dinner. This event emulated an in-person conference experience and allowed competitors to celebrate their wins together as a chapter.
Regardless of obstacles that came with competing online, members had a thrilling and enriching experience participating in ICDC. Congratulations to all of our competitors!
“These students put in countless hours and battled out seemingly endless obstacles and levels of competition to get to this point. I am so very proud of our unprecedented year resulting in not just one but two international champion teams. We had the most successful year to date for our chapter and I can’t be more proud of our Harker DECA Eagles, officer team and student mentors for all of the effort, time, grit and passion they demonstrated throughout the year. Go Eagles!” said Juston Glass, Harker DECA chapter advisor.
Winners and finalists are as follows:
First Place:
– Sasvath Ramachandran, grade 11; Virtual Business Challenge – Accounting
– Andrew Sun and Aditya Singhvi, grade 12; Hospitality Services Team Decision Making
Second Place:
– Grace Hoang and Annmaria Antony, grade 10; Marketing Management Team Decision Making
Junior Mark Hu gave an incredible, history-making performance on the mound on Tuesday, pitching Harker baseball’s first-ever perfect game in a 15-0 victory against Priory. Striking out 18 of 21 batters, Hu denied Priory even a single base hit and did not walk any hitters, only twice allowing the ball-count to reach three. In their reporting on the game, the Mercury News noted that Hu’s 18 strikeouts match the Central Coast Section record set by Valley Christian’s Patrick Wicklander in 2018.
The win brought Harker to 9-0 in league play and 11-4 overall. Coach Mike Delfino called Hu “absolutely dominant” and noted that the junior accomplished the feat in just 86 pitches. He also delivered at the plate, contributing three hits and a two-run homerun. The Eagles will face Priory again on Thursday.
On April 16, students from various high schools attended Harker BEcon, Harker’s annual business and entrepreneurship conference. Throughout this two-day event, more than 100 students attended four events: a keynote speaker, two sets of workshops, a mentor panel and sHarker Tank.
The conference kicked off with Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, who based his keynote talk around responses to students’ pre-submitted questions about a variety of topics including his journey to creating Nvidia. His valuable insight and inspirational ideas taught students to value failure, learning and the journey rather than success. Afterward, students attended various workshops led by industry professionals on topics ranging from behavioral finance to strategies for creating sales pitches.
On the second day, there was another round of workshops, including financial literacy for teens. Next, students were divided into over a dozen virtual rooms and were given the opportunity to have close discussions with seasoned professionals in various industries, such as gaming, biotechnology, social media and more!
Finally, teams of Harker’s own student entrepreneurs competed to receive $1,000 of funding and the chance to pitch their businesses to real venture capital firms as an opportunity to receive even more funding. The competitors included GetWellSoon, TogaTech, H200t, SlimeeCoffee and Explere. Out of the five competitors, junior Arnav Gupta’s GetWellSoon, an expansive database pairing clinical trials with patients, placed first, and freshman Kabir Ramzan’s TogaTech, a digital privacy company, placed second.
With many students expressing very positive sentiments about their experience, BEcon successfully wrapped up its first-ever virtual conference.