IIT IIM Alumni Association conducts its 8th Annual Kuwait open quizzical extravaganza titled Quiz Q8OQ-2023 in grand graceful style yet again in succession, with their event partner, IBPC, Kuwait. IBPC has been associating with IIT-IIM Association for the last three years. The Alumni Association of India’s Premium Institutions, IITs & IIMs, organized its spectacular annual open quiz program Q8OQ-2023 for the eighth year running on 27th October, 2023 at the impressive Indian Embassy Auditorium in Kuwait.
The IIT IIM Alumni Association in Kuwait is an association of alumni of the premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). Registered as a professional association with the Embassy of India in Kuwait, the association functions under the auspices of the Honorable Ambassador of India to Kuwait as its Patron. The Association represents a vast blend of talent and experience from very senior executives to the high energy of youngsters who have just embarked on their professional journeys.
With every passing year IIT-IIM Alumni Association’s open quiz popularity is growing in geometric progression among the quiz aficionados and the general public alike. The uniqueness of this event is, it is open to all irrespective of age, nationality, qualification, gender or profession and the entry is free to everyone. The quiz was conducted by the very renowned globetrotting Asia’s best quizmaster and an alumnus of Harvard Business School, Giri Balasubramanium from India, popularly known across the world as “Pickbrain”.
The Quizmaster for the event, Mr. Giri Balasubramanyam, popularly known as Pickbrain Is a world-renowned leading quizmaster, seen every weekend on several Indian television channels hosting quiz shows. He has presented close to 2000 shows across 92 destinations in India, Singapore, Sri-Lanka, Japan, Kuwait, Middle East, UK and USA. Mr. Giri is known for his distinctive techno savvy style of quizzing, sense of humor coupled with great flair and approachable easy nature, which has earned him several accolades. Tata Crucible Business Quiz for Colleges & Corporates, TCS IT WIZ quiz for Schools, Reserve Bank of India IQ quiz, Times of Oman Quiz are some of the most popular shows hosted by Giri. He began his career as a media sales executive in 1992. In the year 2000, he quit a division of Walt Disney India Pvt. Ltd to pursue his passion for quizzing as a profession. Now, he heads Greycaps India Pvt. Ltd, India's largest onstage quiz Company, headquartered in Bangalore.
He is also a very popular author and creator of several knowledge based books and architect of designing educational programs for schools across India. A popular speaker, educator, motivator and youth mentor who is regularly invited to deliver Keynotes or as a guest of honor at various educational institutions. He received several prestigious awards and he holds seven Limca records for quizzing. He is an alumnus of the iconic elite Harvard University. He holds a Master’s degree on the Gandhian Philosophy.
The event proceedings began by the young comely compere Mr. Raghav Yogesh Rathod, welcoming all the dignitaries, members of IIT-IIM and IBPC, VIPs, Sponsors, the Contestants and all the spectators. He invited the Quiz Master, Mr. Giri Balasubramnyam to take over the proceedings. Mr. Giri after taking the stage, for a change, gave a long introduction on the importance of knowledge quest in this modern world where human’s intelligence is being increasingly challenged with ruthless efficiency of machines. He crisply and clearly spelt out the salient features of the competition, the format and the do and don’ts of the whole process.
The Format of the contest was at three levels – Written Prelims, separate Semi-finals for schools and open categories and a Grand Finale. However, the process of qualifying teams from each School itself began several months ago, with each school conducting their intra school qualifying tests set by GreyCaps before forwarding their best teams to the main event day prelims. Open teams of course joined directly into the written prelims, unlike the school kids. Every Team consisted of three contestants. Initially all the teams went through a qualifying round of tough 20 common questions. The School toppers and Open Category toppers from prelims directly made to the finals while top two teams from each of the category semis made to the grand finals.
The inaugural 2014 as well as the subsequent six years from 2015 to 2022 events were resounding successes with more than 100 teams (3 members a side) from different nationalities, age groups, professions and schools participating for the top honors. The bar of the quiz standard in this quiz competition is being raised continually by both the contestants and the quiz master. This year the program has reached new scales of outstanding quality with the enthusiastic participation of over a thousand quiz participants and admirers from all walks of life, sizes, ages, gender, nationalities including many ankle biters from class 3 and 4. The quizmaster too was an exception, with his distinctive style of high quality quizzing, great sense of humor, impromptu quick wit and spontaneous wordplays. The quiz participants and the avid enthusiastic audience were enthralled with a great range of interesting questions posed from every field. Experienced Giri along with his deputy Ms.Rashmi, simply sailed through the whole process with flawless
ease aided by the unique format, state of the art electronic gadgets, audio-visual systems and software.
Once the written test was completed, while the answer papers were being corrected, the audience consisting of teachers, dignitaries, contestants, members of IIT-IIM Alumni association, Indian Business and Professional Council, Kuwait, school children, families etc. were kept busy by the highly gifted, much admired quizzer and the only current popular woman quizzer of India, Ms. Rashmi. She conducted an equally engrossing and challenging multiple rounds of quizzing, open to all the audience. This has kept the audience attention and interest at the peak level as there were many fabulous spot prizes were at stake. Many well-informed and enthusiastic passionate quizzers in the audience got several valuable prizes. They returned home feeling proud, cheerful and happy with something to cherish.
The President, Mr. Peeyush Jain, felicitated and thanked the Chief Guest, H. E. Dr. Adarsh Swaika, Ambassador of India to Kuwait, for gracing the occasion. The semi-finals and main grand finale event began after the felicitation
The president also felicitated the sponsors and co-hosts. Mr. Peeyush Jain, the President of the IIT-IIM Alumni Association thanked the Star Quiz master, Mr.Giri the Pickbrain, the dignitaries and distinguished guests who graced the occasion making it a grand success. He expressed his gratitude to all those who whole-heartedly supported the association like Indian Business and Professional Council, Kuwait (IBPC), who stood by IIT-IIM Alumni in organizing this event as an event partner, well represented by the large presence of their members led by Mr. Gurvinder Singh Lamba. The IIT-IIM Association also felicitated, him who continue to be a great motivator and ardent supporter of the association’s proceedings, be it music or any other literary event.
IITs and IIMs are the prime educational institutions of India and being the alumni in Kuwait, we always believe that the main foundation of education is built in schools. We are indeed privileged to be associated with all the schools in Kuwait, personally and institutionally. Since, the main pillars of the schools are their Principals, our association strongly believe that they play a major role in achieving our common goals, values and objectives of imparting competitive spirit, instilling the quest for knowledge and preparing future generations to excel in all spheres of life. The school Principals, along with their institution have been our constant partner and a source of mutual cooperation, guidance and inspiration. Therefore, we mulled over this valuable relationship and asked ourselves this question, “how such persons of eminence can be permanent part of us?”. Considering this thought, We grant honorary membership of our association to certain school principals every few years, and felicitate them for their sincere contribution to education. This year, we had the honor to offer our membership to Mr. T. Premkumar, Principal of Indian Educational School, Jleeb AlShyoukh, Kuwait, Mr. K. Gangadhar Shirsath, Principal, Indian Community School, Khaithan
Branch, Kuwait and Mr. Ravi Ayanoli, Principal, Fahaheel Al Watanieh Indian Private School, Kuwait. Our chief guest and Patron, H E Dr. Adarsh Swaika, felicitated the three Principals
H. E. Dr. Adarsh Swaika, Ambassador of India to Kuwait, also felicitated the quizmaster Mr. Giri Balasubramaniam and his deputy Ms. Rashmi.
The quiz was of very high quality, with great range of cryptic questions drawn from different fields of arts, science, sports, politics, fiction etc. from medieval to modern ages, and needless to say the competition was very stiff. Pickbrain in between kept the audience glued with his very interesting and fascinating audience questions, as many prizes were open to them as well.
This year winners were the top team from Open category, represented by Debanjan Bhattacharya, Anubhav Chaudhury and Dwaaipayan Bhattacharya. Their team name was “Remembering Plessey”. When asked by our quiz master about the name, they told that Plessey was their quiz partner for QOQ 2022, who unfortunately passed away last year and this participation was a tribute to their team mate. As fate would have it, they won the first prize and are the champions of QOQ 2023. They dedicated this championship to their lost team mate. They were the well-deserved true winners in every sense of competence metrics as they won the championship with elegance and for a purpose.
The runner up team, “Team FAIPS”, from FAIPS (DPS) school, was represented by three brilliant students, Sharon Thomas, Athul Sandeep and Aibel Praveen. Although they started with few wrong answers and negative scores but maintained their cool and accelerated their momentum as the contest progressed, finally grabbing the second position in the contest. The third prize went to another open team, “Hustlers”, represented by, Kushal Bhatia, Ishan Patnaik and Bhaskar.
The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are globally renowned premier Indian institutions of higher education in the fields of Engineering Technology and Management, respectively. The association can be reached at contact@iitiimkuwait.com or the official website www.iitiimkuwait.com.
It is the aim of IIT-IIM Alumni association to promote the knowledge quest, high quality competitive spirit and expose the residents of Kuwait especially the young students to take a path of knowledge seeking and in the process improve themselves and the society around them. With this noble high aim, the Association conducts this Annual Quiz Event, which is its signature event. The whole event is executed by the IIT-IIM Association Core Team led by Mr.Peeyush Jain, and consisting of Vivek Pawar, General Secretary, Suresh Choksi, Treasurer, and other members Ashish Jain, Anees Aarifa, Yogesh Rathore, Abhishek Roy and Ramesh Kumar.