“It’s like Marilyn Monroe and your mother; you don’t look at both in the same way.”
-Dr V.V. Mandke, Dean (PS Division), when asked to compare Oasis and APOGEE in 1989.
APOGEE or “A Profession-Oriented Gathering over Educational Experiences,” touted as the country’s first academic festival, was held from 15th to 17th April 1983. The students of the university felt the need for a forum where they could present their work-related achievements to the outside world and simultaneously interact with people working in the industry. A mutually profitable venture was formulated which would provide exposure to the rigour of scientific analysis for students while helping companies scout for prospective employees that would fit their profile.
Paper presentation was the cardinal event with around ninety students taking part in it. The present day technical fest has categories based on the different disciplines offered by the university. The original APOGEE, on the other hand, also had more specific and niche categories like Integrated Rural Development, Operations Research and Statistics, as well as Microprocessor Systems. Apart from this, twenty six eminent personalities from a variety of fields were called to deliver talks based on their work. These two events were constructive in the identification of common areas of interest and the subsequent start of dialogue between the companies and students. The professional show equivalents of the first edition merely included embassies screening scientific films. While the paper presentation event was disregarded by many, the other two events had a positive reception with fairly large audiences for both. Book exhibitions, campus interviews, and informal meetings were also conducted. The last few served as avenues for an exchange of ideas between “student delegates and experts from industry.”
This nascent concept of an Academic Week received mixed responses. Very few people from other colleges participated in the first edition. Initially, APOGEE was envisioned with a structure consisting of talks, exhibitions, demonstrations, workshops by companies, panel discussions and sci-tech movie screenings. In essence, it was supposed to play out as a “Young People’s Science Congress”. A sizeable portion of those targets were not met in 1983 due to the lack of organisation and adequate awareness amongst the student community.The continued support and involvement from the Institute and faculty was the one thing that remained constant. The setting up of the Committee of Students for Academic Activities (CoStAA) in January, 1984 and the involvement of 250 students early on, gave the second APOGEE a good boost on its way to success.
With speakers like Rakesh Sharma, Arun Shourie, Stephen Morse and Alan Emtage, the talks, paper and project presentations, and workshops this year certainly prove that APOGEE has come a long way from being merely a congregation of students presenting their ideas to being one of the biggest technical fests of the nation.