Shaz Furniturewala, the APOGEE Coordinator of the Department of Informalz (Informalz), could be seen working diligently in a corner of SAC where the fest preparations were in full swing (although the present three-member-strong workforce indicated otherwise). The APOGEE English Press sat down with him to discuss the lineup of events the department had ready for the fest.
Informalz is responsible for large-scale (mostly) fun but competitive events each fest, and APOGEE follows the trend. This time they will be organising three events—Treasure Hunt, Jeopardy, and Casino Royale.
Treasure Hunt, their signature event conducted every fest, starts at midnight and usually lasts five hours. It sees people racing around the campus to find successive clues. Shaz commented that this edition of the hunt will be more technical in nature, to match the theme of the fest.
Jeopardy will be a quiz in the style of the game show ‘Jeopardy’. Shaz explained that the preliminary round for the event will not be in the game show’s format but the finals will be; wherein participants will have to answer trivia questions from one of the predetermined categories of their choice.
Casino Royale will be a completely new event for the department. People will be able to come and enjoy games like Poker, Blackjack, and Teen Patti. Since BITS does not condone gambling, participants will be given a certain amount of ‘chips’ to play with. Shaz added that the number of winners was still up in the air but they will be able to exchange their chips for “exciting” in-kind prizes.
When asked about how the department came up with the idea for Casino Royale, he explained that to them, casino gambling was analogous to Hivemind, and its introduction to the campus to Genesis. They connected the dots and came up with the event. He shared that work for the fest started around two months ago and since everyone was very punctual and enjoyed their work, they were almost 70-80% done.
When asked about the low numbers of the 2022 batch in the department, he shared that it did not really affect the work that much because their academic schedules were clashing anyway. Since the department abhors all forms of narcotics, the members simply play board games when not occupied with fest work, Shaz claimed.
Shaz shared that he had enjoyed his time as a coordinator and was excited about what APOGEE had in store. On a concluding note, he urged BITSians to participate in the Treasure Hunt.