The APOGEE English Press sat down with Siddharth Khemani, the coordinator of the Coding Club, to learn more about the work they do during the fest.

Siddharth stated that Coding Club started with the aim of teaching students how to code, and they are unique in their motive to build coders from the ground up. He added that their recruitment process starts with an aptitude test to ensure equal opportunity. He stated that the Coding Club has multiple verticals, such as Competitive Coding, App Dev (Application Development), Game Development, Backend, Frontend, and General Works. 

Siddharth then talked about the club’s four events for APOGEE ’25, with the first being a hackathon, the second being the International Coding League (ICL), third—an in-house game stall, and fourth—a brand new event called Decrypt. For the hackathon, prospective coders will be given a problem statement and 24 hours to solve it. ICL would be a CodeForces-based event, where the first round would be online, and the second round would be on campus. Siddharth said that there would be prizes of monetary value for certain events, so participants would gain a fair reward for their skills. He added that this year’s game by the “GameDev” vertical would be a story-based survival mode VR adventure. The coordinator then talked about Decrypt, where participants would be given a set of inputs and outputs, and would have to use their logical reasoning and quick thinking to code functions. According to the coordinator, while they do not expect as much participation as the now-discontinued event Cryptic Hunt, they planned to target a completely different audience with this event, and believe it will be a success nonetheless. Siddharth claimed steady progress for the organization of said events, and is excited to bring it to all of the campus. 

The only major issue Siddharth predicted for APOGEE ‘25 is the lack of footfall due to a multitude of factors, including the “supposed lack of a prof. show”. He highlighted issues with streamlining the process for pitching to CoStAA, especially the meetings being organized at short notice, making it difficult to prepare accordingly. However, he also appreciated the CoStAA for being accommodating, especially when he was having a hard time keeping track of the many forms a coordinator has to fill during fests. He shared his experience as a coordinator as being hectic but was grateful for the opportunity.