The APOGEE Review Meet started at 6 pm BST, i.e. 6:45 pm IST, as the SAC amphitheatre was once more filled with coordinators and representatives from various clubs, associations, and departments. Results were discussed, accomplishments were applauded and, inevitably, all the grievances accrued over the last few months, were given a voice.

The meet started with a review of the various associations, with the General Secretary prefacing the discussion by stating that permission would not be granted for the organisation of any department fest, such as Extropy. Instead of exhausting their resources in organising independent fests, the associations are expected to contribute to APOGEE by organising more events as well as workshops. The review for disciplinary assocs went along smoothly with only a few minor issues being raised, with the CoStAA appealing to the coordinators to involve their members, as well as their Faculty-in-Charge to be more active in APOGEE.

FMaC, DoPy, and Photog were singled out for their refusal to cover events during the fest, despite their duty to do as an SU club. Photog asserted that they would do so but only for specific events, while FMaC responded that they would only comply if their criteria for quality were met.

The CrAC coordinator expressed his appreciation for the good response to the club’s gallery, despite facing minor issues with lighting. ADP promptly interrupted by claiming that the roads were not adequately decorated, despite CrAC’s decision to take responsibility for it. He went on to say that it was pure negligence given the fact that CrAC had the required material in storage, and asked that this be kept in mind for the future.

Among the departments, DExA brought in a net revenue of over 2 lakh from registrations in 35 schools. They also organised mini-APOGEE along with CoStAA, which was a success considering it was the first edition. Issues with the transactions were brought up, with the DExA coord claiming that the delay led to logistical issues and pushing of deadlines. DLE claimed to have generated Rs. 5 lakh in revenue from signings for The Local Train, but the President claimed that he had received multiple complaints about fake signings for the performance, and that the department needed to deal with these issues appropriately.

The first CoStAAn department to be reviewed was ADP. Aside from their standard structures and paintings, ADP made huge bounds in APOGEE’s online presence, with the CoStAAn citing numerous milestones that had been achieved by the department. Among these was a boost of 25,000 likes on Facebook, and the surpassing of IIT Kanpur’s tech fest, Techkriti, in terms of Instagram followers. A major issue raised by ACM regarding publicity was that an international speaker like David Stork was clubbed with general events, while “objectively” lesser known speakers were publicised via individual posts.

The DVM CoStAAn began by mentioning the department’s responsibilities, which included the production of 9 videos, the website, app, and the APOGEE wallet. According to him, over 1000 participants registered through the website, which had over 13,000 views, and the APOGEE app got 2,500 downloads.The APOGEE wallet was a new addition to DVM’s portfolio and was quite successful, resulting in about 2 lakhs being spent through the app. ACM brought up that the ExxonMobil Hackathon registration portal wasn’t functioning properly and a Google form had to be circulated. DVM’s response was that if some participants were able to register, then the issue couldn’t be with the portal, ending with a subtle hint that they won’t work on a URL next time. Certain comments made by the Economics and Finance Association (EFA) coordinator about the usability of the app led to a heated argument between the CoStAAn and EFA members, which came to no conclusion.

In a complete turnaround from last year, Sponz had quite the run this year. In an approach independent to that of Oasis, the primary focus was on tech based companies as they generated 14.5 lakhs in sponsorships. The food stalls were also quite successful, generating a whopping sum of 24 lakh rupees in revenue. The Sponz CoStAAn, in turn, gave due credit to the combined effort of various clubs and departments for the final output. The department was especially proud of the MoU signed between BITS and the Indian Navy, allowing the latter to recruit from BITS. Three new PS stations were also opened as a result of their efforts. A deal with the Delhi-based Coding Blocks was made; the company, in collaboration with the CS department, will hold free workshops on coding open to all. In addition, Sponz and the General Secretary had also secured a deal with Ola to start a bicycle rental service on campus. The Sponz CoStAAn said these efforts were naturally extended to try and bring Ola Auto into Pilani, so that BITSians would no longer face issues heading to Sunshine in the night.

The CoStAAn for PCr read out the numbers first, claiming that 987 participants registered on the website along with 20 odd registrations from the startup weekend, while the final number of outstation participants during the fest was 342. He conceded that the numbers this year were dismal, compared to the previous editions of the fest, but went on to point out that the reasons do not rely only on the functioning of the department, but also on the time, location, and quality of the fest. As far as the timing was concerned, the CoStAAn said that while they managed to avoid any clashes with other prominent tech fests, the CoStAA failed to keep in mind that the tier-two colleges in the near proximity had their mid sems, and their own minor fests at the same time. It was also mentioned that the CoStAA as a collective body had delayed decisions, negatively impacting the publicity and the outreach. The RecNAcc CoStAAn raised an issue with the “guesstimates” made one week before the fest, which tallied up to 550 or more, but in the end saw little less than 350, claiming that this resulted in a significant loss.

RecNAcc’s CoStAAn summed up the department’s APOGEE experience, and brought up the massive success of the kernel event Indian Drone Racing League (IDRL). Their association with IEEE and Instrumentation Forum led to IDRL’s first occurrence in North India. As a result 18 professional pilots, including one from Nepal, participated in the competition and set a benchmark for years to come. He went on to bring up two major logistical issues they faced. The first was the lack of a timely response from department coordinators for the filling of the inventory form, which inevitably led to clashes in the fest. The second, and more eventful issue was about the change in the way they dealt with losses incurred during the fest. Instead of acquiring the total compensation from the SU account, coordinators were held accountable for the losses due to their department, and will be duly charged from their mess accounts.

The belle of the ball was clearly the Department of “Paper Publication”, according to the General Secretary, or better known as the Department of Paper Evaluation and Presentation. The PEP CoStAAn listed out their kernel events, i.e., Think Again Conclave, Papyrus Trails, and the Paper Presentation. This year’s paper presentations saw a far lower outstation participation compared to last year’s – out of the 196 abstracts submitted, 9 were from outstation participants. In the end, 91 papers were selected, and 63 presented. There were minor setbacks in the evaluation process with professors backing out at the last moment and as a result, some categories had to be judged after the fest. The evaluation criteria was also changed with emphasis being placed not only on the presentation but the content itself. The CoStAAn went on to talk about the various talks, and the audience reception, with the Danielle Feinberg talk being appreciated in particular.

The CoStAAn proceeded to draw attention to the movie screening, “An Insignificant Man”, which was followed by the Director’s address, remarking that while it was unfortunate that some the talks were online, they were still well-received, a claim later countered by the entirety of the CoStAA. Much of the contention in ARC pertaining to PEP revolved around the quality of talks, with the department receiving heat from Sponz, Controls, and PCr simultaneously. The President argued that despite the claims, the talks were very much below-par and had failed to gather a large audience with the exception of the Danielle Feinberg talk. The online talks were heavily criticised, with members of the CoStAA pointing out that there was no point in participants coming on campus to view an online talk. It was alleged that the delays in confirmation affected the publicity, and as a result, led to the decline in participation.

A more personal argument arose with the Sponz CoStAAn regarding the talk of Sanjoy Hazarika, one of the speakers at the Papyrus Trails. PEP claimed that while Sponz had taken up responsibility, they did not deal appropriately with the hospitality of their guest, leaving him alone at VFAST with little knowledge of ongoing events until a department junior approached him. The argument quickly turned personal as the CoStAAns went on a tangent, each firing shots at the other department’s structure. The President ended the discussion by “making” an amendment to the APOGEE charter, stating that henceforth all guest talks and lectures held during APOGEE would fall under the collective responsibility of the CoStAA and not under an individual club or department. Unsurprisingly, this was met with strong opposition by PEP, and arguments were raised about clubs like ACM hosting their own talks. Nothing constructive took place thereafter, with the matter being postponed for later discussion.

The President and GenSec also raised concerns about the CRC, claiming that while the second years of CRC had done a commendable job, the performance of the third years, given that they had already worked for the previous APOGEE, was sub-par. A member of the CRC responded to these allegations by explaining that the SU was not privy to the internal structure of the CRC, suggesting that any concerns should be restricted to CRC as a body and not individual members.

Although a few votes were scheduled to happen, the quorum was not met, and as a result, the process was postponed to an unspecified date. The CoStAA made an appeal to the GBM to show enthusiasm for APOGEE. The attitude of the seniors towards the fest was cited as discouraging, and in need of changing. Close to 680 first years left campus even though it was their first APOGEE, influenced by the uninformed opinions of seniors. In a fest that revolves primarily around participation instead of spectatorship, the students need to make a conscious effort to be involved.