![LALC Vice President of External Affairs Raeanne Li (11) explains the International Phonetic Alphabet to attendees. "We decided to have more fun topics this year instead of just talking about the same things every year so our older members can also [enjoy],” Raeanne said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/DSC_4627-1200x795.jpg)
![“[Building nerf blasters] became this outlet of creativity for me that hasn't been matched by anything else. The process [of] making a build complete to your desire is such a painstakingly difficult process, but I've had to learn from [the skills needed from] soldering to proper painting. There's so many different options for everything, if you think about it, it exists. The best part is [that] if it doesn't exist, you can build it yourself," Ishaan Parate said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/DSC_8149-900x604.jpg)
![“When I came into high school, I was ready to be a follower. But DECA was a game changer for me. It helped me overcome my fear of public speaking, and it's played such a major role in who I've become today. To be able to successfully lead a chapter of 150 students, an officer team and be one of the upperclassmen I once really admired is something I'm [really] proud of,” Anvitha Tummala ('21) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Screen-Shot-2021-07-25-at-9.50.05-AM-900x594.png)
![“I think getting up in the morning and having a sense of purpose [is exciting]. I think without a certain amount of drive, life is kind of obsolete and mundane, and I think having that every single day is what makes each day unique and kind of makes life exciting,” Neymika Jain (12) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Screen-Shot-2017-06-03-at-4.54.16-PM.png)
![“My slogan is ‘slow feet, don’t eat, and I’m hungry.’ You need to run fast to get where you are–you aren't going to get those championships if you aren't fast,” Angel Cervantes (12) said. “I want to do well in school on my tests and in track and win championships for my team. I live by that, [and] I can do that anywhere: in the classroom or on the field.”](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/DSC5146-900x601.jpg)
![“[Volleyball has] taught me how to fall correctly, and another thing it taught is that you don’t have to be the best at something to be good at it. If you just hit the ball in a smart way, then it still scores points and you’re good at it. You could be a background player and still make a much bigger impact on the team than you would think,” Anya Gert (’20) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/AnnaGert_JinTuan_HoHPhotoEdited-600x900.jpeg)
![“I'm not nearly there yet, but [my confidence has] definitely been getting better since I was pretty shy and timid coming into Harker my freshman year. I know that there's a lot of people that are really confident in what they do, and I really admire them. Everyone's so driven and that has really pushed me to kind of try to find my own place in high school and be more confident,” Alyssa Huang (’20) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/AlyssaHuang_EmilyChen_HoHPhoto-900x749.jpeg)
Annual TEDxHarkerSchool event takes place tomorrow at upper school
Courtesy of the Office of Communications
TedX members Jeton Gutierrez-Bujari (’15) and Shannon Hong (12) introduce the speaker series from two years ago. The TEDx event will take place tomorrow at the upper school.
The annual TEDxHarkerSchool event hosted by the Harker Business and Entrepreneurship Program, which features speakers for high school and college students, will take place on Saturday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Nichols Auditorium.
This year’s speakers include Michael Snyder, a geneticist from Stanford, Puragra GuhaThakurta, an astrophysicist from UC Santa Clara, Neel Chatterjee, an intellectual property attorney, Kaity Gee, a Harker senior, Andy Fang the CTO of DoorDash and Leila Janah, the founder and CEO of Sama Group.
TEDx is organized mainly by a group of students, curators, or people who choose the content, and Chris Thompson and Juston Glass, the co-advisors of the Business and Entrepreneurship program.
“As curators, we sort of direct the whole operation to see like what do we want the actual schedule to be, what speakers, booths, or mentors that we want, and then how we want to organize it,” curator Shannon Hong (12) said.
Smriti Koodanjeri, a chemistry teacher at the Harker Upper School, is also speaking at the forum.
“I’m hoping to reach a lot more of the students towards this idea, the idea of time management,” Dr. Koodanjeri said.
Dr. Koodanjeri has worked with 20-25 individual students on time management in the past, but hopes to influence more at the conference.
Alexis Gauba (11) looks forward to hearing from Andy Fang, the cofounder and CTO of DoorDash and a Harker alumnus.
“The talk I’m looking forward to most is from the CTO of DoorDash,” Gauba said. “Since he is a Harker alumni, and I’d like to see how he took his ideas and skill set from Harker and transformed them into an actual company, which is thriving now,” Gauba said.
Another aspect of the event is the mentor luncheon, in which students and faculty can meet and interact with different people working in a variety of fields.
“I look forward to seeing 175 students in the seats listening to interesting ideas.” Thompson said. “But I also look forward to the mentor luncheon, where all of the attendees get a chance to meet with a Harker parent who’s a business person that they can build a relationship with.”
In addition to speakers and the luncheon, TEDx also has interactive, corporate booths where ten companies get to display their products.
“We have a lot of really cool booths this year, like we have a mind controlled helicopter drone thing,” Aashika Balaji (11), member of the TEDx team, said.
The Business and Entrepreneurship Program holds these TEDxHarkerSchool events annually.
Ria Gupta (10) is a reporter for the Winged Post. This is her second year on staff. Besides journalism, she likes to bake and cook. Ria loves to play soccer...