The APOGEE English Press chatted with Mihika Deshpande, the coordinator of Postman about the work they have been doing for the fest.

When asked about the events being organised for APOGEE, Mihika said Postman is organising one main event called GameJam. Mihika described GameJam as an event where people from all over the country send games they have made and are judged on criteria such as animation, sound effects, and storyline.

She said that last year no event was conducted by Postman as the team was very new. She mentioned that she was one of the first few people in the team. However, Postman did hold an independent event called API Day last March. This would be the first time that Postman is trying to foray into actually being a club and try to get on to the charter, she said.

She also mentioned that preparation for the events had started quite some time ago. She had been involved with AI/ML and the event handling part of it. Her work for GameJam started in January, and discussions had been going on for a lot longer, according to her.

Postman also went to colleges such as IIIT Delhi and Amity University for ‘Mini APOGEE’, conducted by the Department of External Affairs. They conducted a miniature version of their events at Mini APOGEE which garnered a lot of interest, she mentioned.

When asked about some of the challenges being faced by Postman, she said that a lot of the issues came from looking for sponsors. They spent most of their February sending out “hundreds of emails and calls” every day. She stated that only one or two would respond positively, and even fewer would truly convert. Their Events, PR and Outreach team would handle all of this work.

When asked about her experience as the coordinator, she said that it had been very fulfilling. While it was tough, she said that delegating her work diligently made the whole process very fun, and made her focus on building things together as a team. The second years, whom they recruited just a semester ago, had been taking up leadership roles within the team, which was very heartwarming to see.

As parting words, Mihika said that Postman had one goal in mind when they started, and that was to use the vast amount of resources and funds which were provided to them to build something of worth, and to also create a team that gives creative freedom to do just that. She said that if everybody started to take an interest in such things, they could reach great heights as an institution in general.