As they looked up at the screen and saw their names written in bold, they knew they made it.
All it took for seniors Kevin Joseph and Adel Varkey, and December early graduate Nicholas Abraham was seeing their names pop up as qualifiers to be confident they’d be announced as Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA) state winners. This guarantees them a spot at the International Career Development Conference (ICDC).
Adel and Kevin have previously been in DECA, and this year is Nicholas’s first as a part of the club. The event they’re competing in is titled “innovation planning.” They will be competing in Orlando, Fla on April 26-29.
“I’ve learned a lot [and] I’ve learned through my mistakes,” Kevin said. “[Having] partners who will adapt to your weaknesses and strengths has helped [us] reach the highest high we can reach here at DECA.”
The three had to begin their project by brainstorming a product they would improve, innovate or change entirely. After meeting a staff member at the school who is mute, Nicholas had the idea of making their product a sign language glove, which would sign conversations in real time to make communication easier.
“Kevin, Adel and I were already brainstorming ideas for an innovation, and I [thought,] ‘Man, this could help a lot of people,’” Nicholas said. “So then I threw that idea out there, and we started working on it. It’s history from there.”
The competition includes a 10 page paper, a short presentation at the event and an option to create the actual product and bring a prototype to the competition. The three had to balance school and their jobs in order to make time to practice and work on their prototype, presentation and paper.
“Coming up with a time where all three of us can stay on a call together was the hardest,” Kevin said. “Nicholas is an early graduate, so he’s doing [college] as well as working. Finding a time for him and us to work together is hard.”
Due to the snowstorm earlier this year, the materials for their prototype were delayed over a week, so the three bought pieces from Walmart and Home Depot to pull the prototype together before the district competition.
“It adds a great edge,” Adel said. “During our district competition, when we pulled out the prototype, the judge looked very surprised that we even had it. It looked like junk. It wasn’t that good, but just the fact that we had it — the fact that we put the time in to make it — was a big help to get us to state and now to ICDC.”
Last year, DECA had over 30 students qualify for ICDC. This year, from the school-record-breaking 89 state competitors, the three were the only ones to advance.
“It was crazy,” Nicholas said. “Last year, all of our friends made ICDC. This year [it’s] just us. During the award ceremony, we were halfway through, and no one from our school got called, even the people that made it last year. We were just really down. We were like, ‘Oh, I don’t know. If all [of] these people didn’t make it, I don’t know if we can.’ Eventually we were the last group remaining, and we were like, ‘OK if we make it, we are the face of DECA.’”