This story was submitted by Ariana Gauba, grade 10.
From April 21-26, more than 40 Harker DECA members attended the International Career Development Conference (ICDC), at the Orlando Convention Center.
“ICDC was a truly unique experience where I got to meet new people and network with people across the globe!” said Harker DECA’s 2023-2024 VP of Public Relations Gabriel Jacob Li, grade 10.
Throughout the conference, chapter members explored Orlando, visited Disney’s Epcot Park and Universal Studios, and competed in their events. Harker DECA was extremely competitively successful, having multiple teams placed in the top 5, including Entrepreneurship Team Decision Making and Franchise Business Plan.
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.
Harker rising seniors Rohan Gorti, Arin Jain and Zubin Khera won the top prize of $20,000 yesterday in the 2022 INCubatoredu National Pitch Competition. Held in Chicago, the event featured the top five teams from around the country pitching businesses to compete for funding from a board of investors. The students’ business is TuffToy, which creates and sells high-quality, durable dog toys, and was pitched through a 10-minute video presentation. “Good day to be an Eagle, and a huge milestone for our incubator program,” said business and entrepreneurship teacher and team advisor Michael Acheatel.
Yesterday, the Harker team comprising rising seniors Rohan Gorti, Arin Jain and Zubin Khera was named a top five finalist in the 2022 INCubatoredu National Pitch Competition. Student teams from across the country join this contest every year by pitching their businesses to compete for funding, and finalists earn the opportunity to pitch to a board of investors. The trio’s business is TuffToy, a maker and seller of high-quality, durable dog toys, which they pitched by submitting a 10-minute video presentation. They will travel to Chicago in July for the final portion of the competition.
From Jan. 7-9 the Harker DECA chapter participated in the Silicon Valley Career Development Conference (SVCDC), the first competitive conference of the year. The transition back to the in-person environment sparked excitement in the community, as the event garnered over 120 signups. The weekend consisted of written and roleplay presentations in front of professional judges, networking opportunities and motivational speeches from California DECA’s State Officer Team.
On the first day of the conference, each student took exams in their respective clusters: Marketing, Business Management and Administration, Finance, Hospitality and Tourism, or Business Administration Core. Later that evening, SVCDC kicked off with the opening session in the Grand Ballroom. California DECA’s vice president of Silicon Valley, Tim Jing, announced the theme of the year, “Maximize Your Momentum,” and encouraged all Silicon Valley DECA members to do so while at the conference. The opening session closed with a talent show featuring two acts from the Harker DECA chapter. Sophomores Chloe Lee and Kaitlyn Wang and junior Anika Muddu performed an acoustic version of “Gone” by Rosé, while sophomore Shreeya Merchia sang a powerful rendition of “Red” by Taylor Swift.
The next morning, roleplay events began, which primarily consist of team decision-making, individual series, principles and personal financial literacy roleplays. Soon after, members competed in their written events where they gave 15-minute presentations in entrepreneurship, integrated marketing campaign, professional selling or business operations research categories. For the remainder of the afternoon, students socialized with friends and explored restaurants nearby.
On Sunday, the mini awards ceremony recognized competitors who performed exceptionally well in the testing, roleplay or presentation subcategories of their events.
“I honestly was so shocked when I received the awards, but I was extremely happy that my hard work paid off and I was able to perform well in my events. In the end it was a great and thrilling experience,” said Saahira Dayal, grade 9, who placed second overall in Principles of Business Management and Administration.
Later, during the grand awards ceremony, a total of 20 Harker teams placed in the top three overall for their events, while many more earned spots in the top 10 awards.
Overall, despite the effects of COVID-19, the conference was a huge success. It provided attendees with a fantastic experience that provided valuable insights into their competitive events and a special chance to forge new friendships.
“I’m incredibly proud of all the officers and attendees for adapting to the new restrictions and environment at this conference. It was great to see how much dedication everyone put into their competitive events, and I can’t wait to maximize our momentum at the State and International conferences this year!” said Juston Glass, Harker DECA’s chapter advisor.
Members placing in the top three are as follows:
First Place:
Shreeya Merchia, grade 10, and Anika Muddu, grade 11: Sports and Entertainment Operations Research
Marcus Blennemann, grade 9: Principles of Finance
Second Place:
Chloe Lee and Kaitlyn Wang, both grade 10: Marketing Team Decision Making
Bowen Xia, grade 9: Principles of Finance
Tanisha Singh, grade 10: Entrepreneurship Series
Medha Yarlagadda, grade 10: Restaurant and Food Service Management Series
Claire Luo, grade 10: Sports and Entertainment Marketing Series
Saahira Dayal, grade 9: Principles of Business Management
Third Place:
Chloe Lee, Kaitlyn Wang and Cynthia Wang, all grade 10: Integrated Marketing Campaign- Event
Marcus Blennemann and Nelson Gou, both grade 9: Entrepreneurship Innovation Plan
Catherine He, grade 12: International Business Plan
Saahira Dayal, grade 9: Franchise Business Plan
Jonathan Wang, grade 9: Principles of Finance
Valerie Li, grade 9: Hospitality and Tourism Operations Research
Ashwin Kuppahally and Adrian Liu, both grade 10: Buying and Merchandising Team Decision Making
Bowen Xia, Caleb Tang and Jonathan Wang, both grade 9: Finance Operations Research
Sanaa Bhorkar, grade 9: Principles of Business Management
Justin Chen, grade 10: Business Finance Series
Meishin Yen, grade 10: Hotel and Lodging Management Series
Catherine He, grade 12: Restaurant and Food Service Management Series
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
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.