By Khalida Sarwari
Saratoga High School will host Ram Kapoor, a chief marketing officer at UC-Berkeley, and Beth Davies, director of education and marketing at Tesla Motors, for a TED-style talk on Nov. 5.
The speakers have been invited as part of Saratoga High’s Media Arts Program speaker series, which throughout the school year brings in professionals from various industries with the aim of introducing students to reputable people while giving them an opportunity to learn the impact and use of media in other industries.
“It’s one of the great supports that the parent community provides for our students in the media program and for any students interested in engineering or doctor pathways,” said Kerry Mohnike, assistant principal and a MAP administrative adviser.
Produced by a group called the MAP Boosters, the program combines the disciplines of English, history, economics, government and multimedia, culminating at the end of the school year with an Academy Awards-style event that showcases the best student work in film, digital animation, photography and multimedia journalism.
The speaker series started in 2010, four years after the inception of MAP. According to event co-chair Julie Peck, 300 students–roughly 25 percent of the Saratoga High student body–are involved in the program, and the reason for that is because it has mass appeal.
“It’s not just for the kids that are going to go and be filmmakers,” Peck said. “It’s a great hands-on way for [all students] to learn.”
Past speakers have included representatives in
the news, entertainment and tech industries. Last year, the speaker series featured Pratiti Raychoudhury, director of research at Facebook; Chris Cox, chief product officer at Facebook; and Jill Tarter, an astronomer who holds the Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI Research at the SETI Institute and has been named one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine. During her talk, Tarter discussed her role in Carl Sagan’s movie “Contact,” a sci-fi flick in which the protagonist, played by Jodie Foster, was inspired by Tarter.
The program is free and open to the public, especially students from other schools in Saratoga and neighboring cities. It takes place Nov. 5, 6-7:30 p.m., at the McAfee Center,
20300 Herriman Ave., Saratoga.
For more information about MAP, visit saratogamapfolios.com/shsmap.
Link: Kapoor, Davies at Saratoga High to participate in a TED-style talk
