Juniors Amy Ngo and Kinza Mawani are competing in the sports entertainment marketing role-play event. This is Mawani’s third year participating in DECA and Ngo’s second. This is their second year performing as a team in the business competition.
“In some friendships, you have this non-communicative connection,” Ngo said. “We have that, especially when we are presenting or speaking to a judge. We can bounce off each other’s ideas and complete each other’s thoughts, which helps so much with the flow of our roleplay.”
This is Ngo and Mawani’s first time going to ICDC. Before the international competition, they passed their respective competitions at the district level and the state level. In the competition, the contestants are provided with a prompt 30 minutes before their role-play. During the preparation time, the duo used their previous knowledge of the performance indicators and connected them to the multiple facets of the prompt.
“Our priority was creating a visual, as we had been taught by our officers,” Mawani said. “As soon as we completed that, we created a 4P Plan (person, place, products and promotion) to show how truly prepared we were. This carried over into our presentation, where as soon as one person fell off, the other picked right back up, keeping the entire process seamless.”
Initially, the pair did not believe they placed. As they awaited the awards show to begin, Ngo spent the entire time reminding Mawani how proud of themselves they should have been for getting to the state level. Ngo’s pride was not unrequited, as they were the final duo called on stage as part of state qualifiers and finalists.
“We still can’t believe we are going to ICDC,” Ngo said. “We are getting ready to diligently prepare for the competition using all of the resources provided to us by DECA and the Hebron officers.”
Juniors Divya Bapanapalli and Pushpa Nukala joined DECA for different reasons. For Bapanapalli, the club was a foray into her future career, but Nukala joined solely because her friends joined. Their event, sports marketing, was not their first venture into partnership. During their sophomore year, the duo partnered together for another event in the hospitality sector, sports entertainment marketing.
“In our last event, we did not know how to prepare for the competition,” Nukala said. “This year, we paid way more attention to the performance indicators. We realized that splitting the indicators up and focusing on them was the key to being successful.”
The team said they underestimated the true challenge that the competition brought. They recall their state competition experience, where they were sitting right next to fellow juniors Amy Ngo and Kinza Mawani, both unsure of how to approach their specific role-plays. They said the advice given to them by other DECA members was what provided them solace in their work.
“We got a lot of help from other people, and were lucky enough to effectively use it,” Bapanapalli said. “As sophomores, we didn’t take it seriously, but now that we are juniors, we actually knew we had to put the work into it. We had the benefit of our chemistry, but making sure we didn’t procrastinate was what helped us the most.”
Now, Bapanapalli and Nukala are preparing for ICDC by reviewing their indicators and drafting potential strategies.
“Luckily, we retained a lot of the information we crammed during our preparation for state,” Bapanapalli said. “We are definitely nervous, but are excited to see what the role-play brings.”
Following a high school experience deterred by COVID-19, seniors Ananya Yarlagdda and Cyrus Thomas are attending ICDC as members of the entrepreneurship team decision making event. This is their second year as a team, with their last season ending at the district competition.
“Sometimes this club is a hit or miss situation, no matter how hard you try,” Thomas said. “It was disheartening when we didn’t make it to state, because we definitely have made a good duo elsewhere; it just wasn’t our time.”
Despite their initial loss, they bounced back the next year. Throughout the break in between competition years, the duo worked on their performance individually and together. The pair said they worked to figure out how to alleviate the pressure that rises in the moment, which was due to resorting back to their practice methods.
“We usually start with a little bit of nervousness, and then we get into the groove of things and do better,” Yarlagdda said. “It didn’t feel like we deserved what we won until we properly studied.”
The team attributes their success to their past experience working together, which led to winning at state and advancement to ICDC. Yarlagadda and Thomas said they were grateful for the trip, but were hopeful that this would give them more opportunities
“I would say our strengths and weaknesses fit in perfectly with each other,” Thomas said. “We’ve gotten to the point where we know what we are doing, are more relaxed and excited for ICDC.”
Juniors Aishwarya Ramkumar Babu and Brihati Krishna are competing in ICDC for the first time. In their preparation, they worked alongside other people in their cluster, working to learn the important topics.
“[Our friendship] has helped our work so much.” Babu said. “It opens up the conversation so much, it allows us to talk about things. We’ve done so many things together [that] this just felt like another item.”
The duo is participating in the competition under the buying and merchandising team decision making role-play, in which they were tasked to provide ways for products to reach consumers’ hands. Babu said she was nervous, as they had never done this event before.
“After our roleplay, I felt confident, but Aishwarya wouldn’t let me talk about it,” Krishna said. “She wouldn’t let me say anything about it until the awards ceremony.”
After finding out they were advancing, the team had to re-evaluate their strategies going into ICDC: studying. Though they performed well in the last round, they said they are aware of the competition leveling up.
“It’s going to be such an exciting moment,” Babu said. “Not only is it in California, but we get to meet people from both the U.S. and other countries. It is nerve-wracking, as everybody is the best of the best, but we can’t wait.”