With APOGEE just a few days away, the APOGEE English Press sat down with Kashish Agrawal, CoStAAn of the Department of Paper Evaluation and Presentation (PEP), to gain insight into their work for the fest.

Kashish began by informing that the entire fest, APOGEE, had been built around paper presentation competitions. She shared that in the early days of BITS, there used to be a heavy influx of students for such competitions, which sparked the idea for a ‘tech fest’ and thus began APOGEE.

Kashish explained that in addition to paper presentation competitions, PEP also organises the Think Again Conclave, wherein they invite accomplished speakers from diverse fields to deliver enlightening talks on campus. She added that PEP also conducts Papyrus Trails, the ‘annual literature fest of BITS Pilani’, which encompasses literary and cinematic events, including manga book fairs, movie screenings, and talks by authors. Additionally, PEP has a supporting role in conducting the Entrepreneurship Conclave and exhibitions such as those by the NDRF and DRDO. Kashish mentioned that while paper presentations and the Think Again Conclave had been legacy events, the Entrepreneurship Conclave and exhibitions joined in through the years. She highlighted that the latter had a unique legacy of its own—one of NDRF’s exhibitions had included a zipline from the Clock Tower to FD-3, ‘a vital education experience’ that had played a pivotal role in making exhibitions a routine event conducted by PEP.

Kashish said that CoStAA had been supportive of the management and pitching of events. Speaking about the controversies engulfing budget cuts by CoStAA, she remarked that financial constraints had been implemented due to certain events that took place during APOGEE ’24 and that as the student body responsible for the complete functioning of the fest, the onus had been on them to manage it and maintain a balance. She said that it had been challenging to cover up the losses quickly, which had been the reason for the conflicts and controversies that had cropped up recently. When asked to compare the deductions during Oasis ’24 with the financial conflicts of APOGEE ’25, Kashish remarked that CoStAA had been trying its best not to charge fellow students by innovating and changing their model occasionally. She pointed out that during the second semester, the CoStAA had sufficient time to ideate and conduct the Food Fest to generate revenue for APOGEE ’25. However, she mentioned that ‘no deductions’ was not necessarily the final state of affairs and did not comment further.

Regarding their work schedule, Kashish expressed that as PEP worked mostly for APOGEE alone, it was thus active from December to March/April. During the other months, the department mostly carried out its recruitment process. PEP’s pre-fest preparations began in December when the department started reaching out to guest speakers who would be willing to deliver talks on campus. This early work had to be carried out owing to the packed schedules of prospective guests. The work for paper presentation competitions began two months before the fest. The overall work had been smooth and almost finished. The paper presentation was already underway, with Round One having recently concluded.

Kashish remarked that most of PEP’s workforce had already been part of a club or department on campus, leading to them being aware of work ethics and culture. She appreciated the close-knit bonding among the members, often ensuring smooth communication and coordination in the department. Kashish said that she found her experience as PEP’s CoStAAn to be quite fun. The journey had had a few setbacks, such as last-minute cancellations by speakers, but the experience had been exciting. Speaking about coordination among the CoStAA and the coordinators of other clubs and departments, Kashish said that even though it had not been ‘one hundred percent smooth’, the way everything had been handled was ‘seamless and logical’. There had been several crests and troughs during the meetings, but a common consensus had nearly always been achieved.

In conclusion, Kashish wished to clear a common misconception about APOGEE—the fest had been established to be a ‘technological fest’, however she maintains that it is a ‘technical fest’. The distinction between the two was that while a technological fest covered events related to technology, a technical fest comprised events that delved into the ‘technical’, or the in-depth aspects of any field—including but not limited to science, technology, literature, art, music, or sports.