With APOGEE 2026 only a few days away, the APOGEE English Press sat down with Maanas Popuri, Coordinator of the Department of External Affairs (DExA) for a brief chat about the work his department does and their plans for this year’s edition of the fest.

DExA is one of the lesser known departments on campus. Acknowledging this, Maanas explained that their primary role was to conduct a pan-India scientific aptitude olympiad– Aarohan, for students of classes ninth to twelfth. The olympiad consisted of two rounds, the first of which was generally held online. The questions asked in this round were related to recent engineering advancements. No prerequisite knowledge was expected of the participants and they only required logic to solve these problems. The top performers from Round One would advance to the second round held in APOGEE. 

Another function of DExA, he said, was to conduct ‘Mini Fests’ wherein the department would go to other institutes and promote events being conducted at APOGEE. Citing the latest example of such a Mini Fest held at DTU for the Mathematics Association’s events, Maanas proudly informed us that they amassed a large number of pre-registrations for their events.

Maanas further explained that the department had multiple verticals within itself such as the knowledge team, which worked on the papers, the Mini Fest team, which promoted events at other institutes, etc. His role as Coordinator was to supervise all these teams. Aarohan 2026 saw approximately 1300 registrations, up from the circa 1000 of last year. Maanas believed that this was a significant improvement, especially after accounting for the dip in registrations during the COVID years. The idea of Round Two, held during APOGEE was to encourage participants to be more hands-on. He explained that the events held during this round would encourage teamwork and evaluate how students respond to different situations. Winners from this final round would be given personalised kits as prizes, made in collaboration with the Radio Control (RC) Club to take home and work on.

The department would also be arranging talks and interactions with speakers for the students and their accompanying family members. Icebreaker sessions, a campus tour, an escape-room style event in the IPC, and a treasure hunt around campus were just some of the activities that had been planned out for the curious minds of Aarohan. Maanas recalled an instance of a special event conducted for the children a few years ago, where they interacted with the President of Astro Club after their successful rocket launch.
DExA faced some issues with food cost related estimations the previous year, an issue that The Department of Controls had since resolved. He believed that the department needed to promote Aarohan more strongly in addition to scaling the Mini Fest idea, since it had been resoundingly successful so far. He suggested that BITSians could also promote the olympiad at their own schools, after which DExA would pitch to the management of that school. Although, critically, he added that students could register independently as well and need not be affiliated with a school. In his final message to the GBM, he urged everyone to help DExA spread the word for next year’s events and also support them this year, since they had been working tirelessly on making Aarohan a bigger success this time.