This story was submitted by Jia Jia Jiang, grade 10.
On Wednesday, Harker’s CareerConnect club hosted an event with entrepreneur and venture capitalist Atit Jariwala, who reflected on his high school, college and work experiences. He spoke to students about how he was able to transform his success from his early years into the business world. Additionally, he provided insightful advice on the transition from school to work and how students could better their opportunities. Jariwala graduated valedictorian of his high school. He then earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Yale University and an MBA from Stanford University. Since then, he has founded startups in real estate and technology, opened a restaurant chain and worked in the venture capital industry. Jariwala also shared about some recent projects he had been working on in states including Missouri and New York, and discussed the change from in-person to online work.
The event was helpful for many students who wanted to hear personal advice from a working professional. Sophomore Deeya Verma, reflecting on Jariwala’s journey to success, commented, “Learning about the route he took to success was interesting and plausible for anyone with determination and passion, making it an overall eye-opening and informative experience.” Sophomore Sam Parupudi believed that “his knowledge about all things business combined with his academic skills and an easy-to-follow manner of speech made this the perfect event.” Overall, the attendees enjoyed listening to Jariwala’s story and experiences and were glad to hear from someone with knowledge in many industries.
Last month, sophomore Emma Milner published a feature on Harker Aquila about Robert Rothbart MS ’00, who now plays basketball professionally in the Israeli National League. The story was selected as Best of SNO by Student News Online and was praised by Rothbart, who said, “I have been interviewed hundreds of times in my career, and this is hands down the only article I cherish.” The story goes into Rothbart’s early life in former Yugoslavia and his difficulty adjusting to American life after joining Harker as a fourth grader when his mother was hired as a basketball coach. Rothbart began playing basketball at Harker that same year and soon decided he wanted to be a professional player, following in his parents’ footsteps.
Members of the Class of 2002 got together at the upper school campus on Dec. 17 for their 20th anniversary reunion. The event was held in the campus’ auxiliary gym, which brought back fond memories for the alums of the upper school’s first graduating class.
“It’s not like your 20-year high school reunion happens all the time,” said Isabella Liu ’02, who helped organize the event. “And we were the first graduating class. It always comes up whenever we’re together.”
In addition to reminiscing with each other over food and drinks, the alumni also met with longtime faculty members and visited some of the campus facilities that have sprung up since their graduation.
“I have such warm memories of my entire Harker experience that I made a point of coming back for the reunion,” said Alex Janofsky ’02. “Now that I have school-aged children, I am increasingly reflecting on my own grade school experiences to share with them.”
Harker’s Office of Communication recently received a Best of District VII award from the Council for Advancement & Support of Education (CASE), which each year recognizes the best digital and print publications serving educational communities, primarily universities. Harker received the award for the series of videos about the construction of the middle school campus, filmed and edited by the OOC’s own Eric Marten with generous help from freelance videographer Jenny Miller.
This latest win marks the eighth CASE award for the department since 2011, when it received a silver award for Harker Quarterly magazine. Since then, the OOC has earned CASE awards for major projects including the Harker website, the 125th anniversary sub-website and the 2018 athletic branding campaign. The OOC also has received more than two dozen MarCom awards — administered by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals — since 2007.
The Harker Math Club, coached by upper school math teacher Anu Aiyer, just won the fall 2022 high school Math Madness championship. It was the club’s first time winning the competition since 2015. Held by AreteLabs, the biannual online competition consists of four league rounds and six tournament bracket rounds. Teams compete in 30-minute matches with two teams facing off at a time. Teachers schedule the times for their teams to complete the seven or eight multiple choice and fill-in-the-blank questions that make up each match. Approximately 20,000 students participate in Math Madness competitions each year.
Chess enthusiasts Vyom Vidyarthi, grade 10, and Omya Vidyarthi, grade 7, participated in the North American Youth Chess Championship in Mexico City from Dec. 1-6, each winning their respective sections. Vyom placed first in the U20 section and earned his second grandmaster norm, while Omya won the U20 girls section. Earlier this year, Vyom and Omya each won gold at the Pan American Youth Chess Championship.
On Nov. 28, Simar Bajaj ’20 received the Foreign Press Association’s Science Story of the Year award, for a piece he penned for The Guardian in August about pig-to-human heart transplants. Bajaj, who currently attends Harvard University, went to London to receive the award in person. A video has been posted of Bajaj receiving the award, as well as some of his remarks. The FPA is the world’s oldest press organization, dating back to 1888. Bajaj is the youngest awardee in the organization’s history.
The fourth-annual Santa Clara Children’s Business Fair, organized by ninth grader Mikhil Kiran, took place Oct. 22 at Live Oak Park in Santa Clara, during which 100 young entrepreneurs pitched their product ideas to visitors from the local community. “We had a really good event, with a wonderful turnout,” said Kiran, who estimated that several hundred people attended.
Kiran, who is also the founder of the nonprofit Kidzrule, has run the event since he was a fifth grader. He started the nonprofit to create and inspire the next generation of young entrepreneurs.
Harker students participating at the fair included fifth grader Ryan Santosh, who created Nature Designs, and Aditya Shivakumar, grade 9, and Trisha Shivakumar, grade 8, of Magic Escape.
Santa Clara Mayor Lisa Gillmor and Santa Clara City Councilmember Kathy Watanabe, who gave special speeches to the entrepreneurs, were present at the fair, encouraging and congratulating the young entrepreneurs on their first adventures into business.
Last month, sixth graders Ethan Hao, Randy Hui and Terry Zhu, and fifth graders Isabella Du, Richard Li and Aixuan Sun, took first place at a First Lego League Northern California Qualifier event held at Piedmont Middle School. Known collectively as Tierra Bots, the team scored 360 points, and presented an innovation project for a robot that specializes in cleaning solar panels. The team plans to enter the regional competition in February.
In mid-November, three Harker eighth graders were honored in the Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Contest’s junior division. This year’s contest, held by Bow Seat Ocean Programs, received 4,000 entries from around the world and aimed to inspire youth to learn about and take action on climate change. Students researched and wrote about climate issues in their grade 7 expository writing classes, and their essays were entered into the contest as part of the curriculum.
Additionally, middle school English teacher Marjorie Hazeltine received an Educator’s Award along with $750 to put toward education on climate change. “I submitted a summary of the way I used the contest in my classroom at Harker,” Hazeltine said. “The theme last year created the perfect opportunity to teach satire, persuasion, rhetoric and humor.”