APOGEE tends to get overshadowed by the behemoth of a fest that is Oasis and the two are often unfairly compared despite them being two festivals of different domains altogether. To the average BITSian, APOGEE may seem like a mundane affair consisting of tedious paper presentations and boring lectures, but this is merely a myth. Ever since its inception in 1983—previously known as Academic Week—APOGEE has not only had a host of interesting guests and keynote speakers but has also had a variety of unique events to complement all the technology-related lectures and exhibitions.

Although most of the invited guests are those from the industry and academia, as is befitting for a technical fest, it has also had guests from numerous other fields. In the years 2016 and 2018, Richard Stallman and Danielle Feinberg had delivered their guest lectures respectively. While the former is a well-known free software movement activist and launched the GNU (GNU’s Not Unix) movement, the latter is a cinematographer and is the Director of Photography for Lighting for Pixar. Notably, she has directed the lighting for three Academy Award-winning films.

As innovation is a key aspect of APOGEE, people who are known to think ‘outside the box’ have been called over the years. Probably, the most notable amongst them would be Jeff Lieberman who is renowned for his work in kinetic sculptures. He has an impressive four degrees from MIT, and he also hosted the science-themed television program Time Warp on the Discovery Channel. 

Walter Lewin, one of the famous professors of MIT, whose physics lectures have been viewed by all engineering aspirants at some point of their preparation, was also a guest speaker a few years ago. 

Established authors and illustrators have also been guests in the APOGEEs of the past. In the late ’90s, R K Laxman—cartoonist for the Times of India and creator of the beloved ‘Common Man’—had delivered a talk. In the recent past, Manu Joseph and Jeet Thayil, both of whom are award-winning writers, were also invited as speakers. It is worth noting that Jeet Thayil’s Narcopolis was nominated for the Man Booker Prize in 2012.

From the realm of academia, APOGEE has had the privilege of having talks by the likes of Shiraz Minwalla, an Indian theoretical physicist and string theorist at TIFR, and Atul Gurtu, another physicist who specializes in particle physics and the leader of the Indian team at CERN. T.N. Seshan, the tenth Chief Election Commissioner, whose radical reforms cleaned up many electoral malpractices, was the chief guest of APOGEE 1994 (students of that time referred to this APOGEE as the T.N. Seshan APOGEE).

Ever since the introduction of professional shows in APOGEE, there have been many a great performance. Music groups like Alfatune and The Local Train have performed in the past. A few big names in the stand-up comedy circuit like Abish Mathew and Zakir Khan have also had gigs in the past.

The speaker line-up this year consisting of names like Rakesh Sharma, Ashwin Sanghi, and Alan Emtage among others seems promising and increases the excitement. Ritviz, the composer of the famous single “Udd Gaye”, has been called for this year’s APOGEE with the hopes of adding to the sense of excitement and energy that will permeate the fest. APOGEE 2019 will also witness the comic wit of Karunesh Talwar and Kumar Varun, in this year’s N2O.