Quark, the annual international techno-management festival of BITS Pilani, KK Birla Goa campus, is all set to be held from February 9 to 11! With the theme ‘Spanning Horizon’, the event is expecting around 50,000 participants from colleges and schools across the world.
All events come under eight major categories — Elixir, Corporate, Roboficial, Design and Build, Programmers Inc., Initiatives, Specials, and Electrify.
These categories have sub-events such as MatMania, Digilogica, RoboSumo, Mortar Kombat, Paper presentation, Hackathons, Smart Cities Smart Solutions, Trailblazers, the Quark National Quiz and many more, which witness fierce competition as participants try to build robots or connect circuits.
Matka, credited with being one of the biggest national gaming competitions for the players of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and DOTA, has people playing through the night to clinch the trophy. BITSMUN, one of the biggest MUNs in India, sees around 350 national and international delegations.
Exhibitions like robotic hand, brain-controlled helicopter, and Soundbox are major attractions.
Eminent companies hold workshops conducted by noted professionals. The 2018 line-up features companies such as Amazon Web Services (Cloud Computing), SolidWorks (CAD Modelling and Design), National Instruments (Internet of Things), QuickHeal (CyberForensics and Ethical Hacking), Buyucoin (Cryptocurrency), and SEBI (Equity Markets, Introduction to Financial Planning and Tech Analysis).
The Guest Lecture list of the event has always boasted of famous names such as Dr Subramanian Swamy, ex-Union Minister and member of Rajya Sabha; Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, ex-President of India; Dr Walter Lewin, noted physisict and Professor Emertius at MIT; Stephen Pastis, world-famous cartoonist; Brendan Eich, co-founder of Mozilla and creator of JavaScript and many more.
The Aurora Nights perfectly complement the technical events. The previous editions saw performances by The Indian Jam Project, bagpipe artist ‘The SnakeCharmer’ aka Archy Jay, and electric Bollywood cellist Alison Gabrielle, among others.
Its CSR initiatives like RED and whY Chromosome have helped promote the use of technology in solving social problems through blood donation camps and awareness drives. RED has seen brand ambassadors such as Kiran Bedi and this year, Colonel Lalit Rai.
For latest updates, check out the Quark, BITS Pilani Goa’s Facebook page and book your place at what promises to be a fun, stimulating three days.