San Jose, California – From Friday January 3, 2014 to Monday January 5, 2014, nearly 100 students from The Harker School DECA chapter traveled to the Marriott Hotel in San Jose to attend Silicon Valley’s Career Development Conference. This was a three-day leadership and business conference and competition. Harker performed admirably with 49 finalists and 21 individuals in the top three in their category. In addition, three Harker students were elected into the Silicon Valley District Action Team: Shannon Hong as VP of Competitions, Sophia Luo as VP of Public Relations, and Haley Tran as VP of membership. 

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Members placing in the top three are as follows:

   First Place

• Monica Thukral (12); Harker DECA President; Food Marketing Individual Series Roleplay
• Ray Xu (9); Principles of Finance
• Srivatsav Pyda(9), Arthur Shau(12); Business Team Decision Making(TDM)
• Safia Khouja(11), Sabrina Sidhu(11); Hospitality TDM

   Second Place

• Shannon Hong(10), Director of PR; Michael Zhao(10), Treasurer; Annie Zhou(10); Entrepreneurship Innovation Plan
• Aathira Menon& Natasha Santhanam(10); International Business Plan
• Glenn Reddy(11), BE Department Liaison & Felix Wu(11); Business Operations Research Written Plan
• Julia Fink(12); Apparel and Accessories Marketing
• Mabel Luo(12); Business Service Marketing
• Shannon Hong(10), Director of PR, Restaurant and Food Service Management
• Victoria Ding(10), Sapna Suresh(12); Marketing TDM
• Adithram Rengaramchandran(12), Rohan Kapatkar; Travel and Tourism TDM

   Third Place

• Gaurav Kumar(12), Co-Director of Public Relations, Adarsh Battu(12), Director of Events; Business Team Decision Making

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On Friday, all Harker DECA member arrived at the Marriott hotel where they would remain for the whole weekend. To start the conference off, the Silicon Valley District Action Team for 2013 began the night at 9PM with a Opening Ceremony consisting of a speech from SV DECA director, Carl Schmidt, and a talent show called the SV Factor. The winners of the talent show were offered the opportunity to pie the officers of SV DECA in the face. This concluded the Opening Ceremony on Friday night.  

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The hundreds of students gathered together again on Saturday morning for their competitive events. Each student was issued a time slot. After the competition, the students were able to attend a two hour long election session for the next Silicon Valley District Action Team. Harker had five candidates in the running, three were elected – Shannon Hong(10), Sophia Luo(10), and Haley Tran(9).

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The day ended with a ballroom dancing short lesson and a conference dance. Many students were able to let loose and have fun after a full day of competing and learning about business. Sunday morning, students attended the Awards session. Breakfast was provided while the district officer team distributed the awards to all the winners. 

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“SVCDC was an exhilarating experience. I learned new skills as a competitor and a candidate, meeting different people from all over the Silicon Valley and being apart of this wonderful community of intellectually curious and business minded high school students. Standing on stage, twice, was thrilling; I hope to do even better during States.” – Shannon Hong (10), Harker DECA Director of Public Relations, SV VP of Competitions, Second Place RFSM and ENI. 

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“The conference was really fun and a great learning experience; I enjoyed spending time with friends and talking about business.” – Steven Cao (9). 

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“At SVCDC, we were able to not only present our projects that we had worked so long on but also meet old friends and make new ones. I never expected to make it to the stage, so when they called my name I was already in shock. Winning second place together with my friends was the best part; all of our work was worth that moment of pride when we stood together on stage.” – Michael Zhao (10), Harker DECA Treasurer, Second ENI

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