Last week, longtime upper school art teacher Pilar Agüero-Esparza was named one of the 12 most recent Bay Area artists to join the Fleishhacker Foundation’s Eureka Fellowship Program, which has provided funding to local artists since 1986. A national panel of arts experts evaluated the work of each of the 123 artists nominated by local nonprofits. Agüero-Esparza’s award of $35,000 will be received in 2025 as part of the program’s three-year cycle.
A teacher at Harker since 2002, Agüero-Esparza’s work has appeared in many museums and galleries, including the San Jose Museum of Art, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, MACLA and the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, frequently exploring concepts of race and inequality while channeling her own experiences living as a part of a marginalized group. In summer 2022, Montalvo Arts Center commissioned her to create a tapestry mural for their Claiming Space exhibition.
This story was submitted by Ariana Gauba, grade 10.
More than 120 Harker DECA members attended the regional Silicon Valley Career Development Conference (SVCDC), held Jan. 6-8 at the Santa Clara Marriott. SVCDC officially kicked off this year’s competitive season and consisted of testing, roleplay and written presentations, as well as speeches from the state officer team and the election of this year’s California DECA vice president of Silicon Valley.
“This SVCDC was a really memorable experience,” said CEO Anika Muddu, grade 12. “It was our first completely back-to-normal regional conference after COVID, so the energy was amazing, and I could really tell that everyone gave it their all. It was an amazing experience for our first-year members, and I’m incredibly proud of the chapter’s competitive success!”
During the opening ceremony, California DECA’s VP of Silicon Valley, Vineeta Muvvala, and VP of leadership, Nitin Jaladanki, introduced the conference, went through the schedule for the weekend, and introduced this year’s theme, “Get the Edge.” They also honored the late Pam McKenney, who was a crucial part of California DECA. Attendees also listened to speeches from the candidates for this year’s VP of Silicon Valley, one of which is Harker DECA’s director of written events, sophomore Emily Mitnick.
“The Silicon Valley conference was a great experience for me as a candidate because I got to meet and talk to hundreds of students in the span of three days. I had never given a speech to over 100 people before, so presenting my speech to over 800 students and teachers was an important milestone,” Mitnick said. “The two other candidates were both so friendly, and I couldn’t have been happier to spend my time getting to know them and becoming friends with them.”
The next day was dedicated to competition. All competitors participated in their roleplay and written presentations. Harker DECA competed in a wide variety of events, including individual series and team decision-making roleplays, as well as Entrepreneurship, Professional Selling, Integrated Marketing, Operations Research plans and more.
“SVCDC definitely aided in building my confidence when competing. From the time I spent practicing, presenting, and competing there, I built upon my speaking skills and expanded my overall knowledge of business management. Having a competition locally made me more comfortable in the environment,” said attendee Minal Jalil, grade 9.
The final day of SVCDC consisted of awards ceremonies. Students made their way to the grand ballroom on Sunday morning for the Mini Awards Ceremony, where many Harker DECA chapter members were recognized for their test and presentation scores. Harker was extremely successful, with many students becoming finalists and 35 teams placing in the top three for their events.
“The conference itself was a great experience and I really enjoyed learning, presenting my ideas, and spending time with friends. Placing first in my event was one of the best feelings because it felt like all the work I had put into my project had finally paid off,” said sophomore Sahil Varma, a first-place winner in Hospitality and Tourism Professional Selling.
“I am so proud of each and every student that competed in this conference,” said Juston Glass, Harker business and entrepreneurship teacher and chapter advisor. “It was obvious that all competitors worked extremely hard on their presentations, and there is no doubt that we got the edge at this conference! From winning glass to Emily being elected VP of Silicon Valley, this conference is definitely a memorable one. I can’t wait to see the great things Harker will do at SCDC!”
Top three award winners are as follows:
First Place:
– Joy Hu, grade 9: Integrated Marketing Campaign – Event
– Sahil Varma, grade 10: Hospitality and Tourism Professional Selling
– Claire Luo, grade 11: Professional Selling; Sports and Entertainment Marketing Series
– Sathvik Chundru, grade 11: Innovation Plan
– Annmaria Antony and Grace Hoang, both grade 12; Independent Business Plan
– Ashley Hong and Metrica Shi, both grade 11: Franchise Business Plan
– Tanisha Singh, grade 11: Business Service Operations Research
– Valerie Li, grade 10: Buying and Merchandising Operations Research
– Alicia Ran, grade 10, Tiana Salvi, grade 10: Finance Operations Research
– Meishin Yen and Medha Yarlagadda, both grade 11: Hospitality and Tourism Operations Research
– Saahira Dayal, grade 10: Automotive Services Marketing Series
– Sanaa Bhorkar, grade 10: Business Services Marketing Series
– Meishin Yen, grade 11: Hotel and Lodging Management Series
– Andrew Au and Edward Huang, both grade 11: Buying and Merchandising Team Decision Making
– Ariana Gauba and Shaila Tandon, both grade 10: Travel and Tourism Team Decision Making
Second Place:
– Shiven Balaji, grade 10: Integrated Marketing Campaign – Product
– Caleb Tang, Jonathan Wang and Bowen Xia, all grade 10: Franchise Business Plan
– Krish Arora, grade 9: Principles of Finance
– Maya Affaki, grade 10: Hotel and Lodging Management Series
– Chloe Lee, grade 11: Marketing Communications Series
– Caleb Tang, grade 10: Quick Serve Restaurant Management Series
– Roshan Amurthur and Angelina Antony, grade 9: Marketing Management Team Decision Making
Third Place:
– Saahira Dayal, grade 10: Financial Consulting
– Allison Huang, and Ruhi Banerjee, both grade 9: Buying and Merchandising Operations Research
– Gary Jin, grade and Jason Yi, both grade 10: Sports and Entertainment Marketing Operations Research
– Joy Hu, grade 9: Principles of Business Management and Administration
– Aashvi Ravi, grade 9: Principles of Hospitality and Tourism
– Sophia Ou, grade 9: Principles of Marketing
– Alicia Ran, grade 10: Apparel and Accessories Marketing Series
– Vedant Balachandran, grade 10: Food Marketing Series
– Keren Eisenberg, grade 10: Marketing Communications Series
– Medha Yarlagadda, grade 10: Restaurant and Food Service Management Series
– Grace Hoang and Annmaria Antony, both grade 12: Entrepreneurship Team Decision Making
– Gary Jin, grade and Jason Yi, both grade 10: Sports and Entertainment Marketing Team Decision Making
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.
At the 2022 US Open Table Tennis Championship, held last month in Ontario, sixth grader Sophie Shen and her partner took first place out of 66 teams in the U3100 doubles event. This was her first international tournament.
Shen also continued competing in cross country after the school league season. At the 2022 USATF National Junior Olympic Cross Country Championships, she set a personal record of 11:50 in the 3K race in 11-12 age division, placed 81 out of 350 runners and helped the travel team place fourth out of 27 teams. The team also placed first in both the Pacific Association and Regional Championships in the national qualifier round.
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.