IIT IIM Alumni Association pulls it off in style again, in succession with their associate partner, IBPC, Kuwait. IBPC has been associating with IIT-IIM Association for the last two years. M/s KGL was the Event partner for this Year. The Alumni Association of India’s Premium Institutions, IITs & IIMs, organized its spectacular annual open quiz program QOQ-2018 for the fifth year running on 30th November, 2018 at the grand Cambridge School Auditorium in Mangaf, 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. 

As the Northern kisses bring in cool breeze into Kuwait with the onset of the winter around this time every November, it also rings sweet quizzing bells among the quiz fraternity who eagerly await this most exciting and tough challenging contest. This time the nation experienced unusual thunderous cloudbursts that pounded relentlessly over two previous weeks and way laid the lives of everyone. Yet they failed to disrupt the unbound spirits of the love of quiz contestants who enthusiastically participated in large numbers to quench their thirst for knowledge bouts and keep alive their penchant for the competitive edge.

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 quizmaster and an alumnus of Harvard Business School, Giri Balasubramaniam from India, popularly known across the world as “Pickbrain”. 

The event proceedings began by the young comely compere Miss Astha, welcoming all the dignitaries, members of IIT-IIM and IBPC, the Contestants and all the spectators. She invited the Quiz Master, Mr. Giri Balasubramaniam to take over the proceedings. Mr. Giri then gave a brief of the format and salient features of the competition format as well as the program. 

The Format of the contest was at three levels – Written Prelims, Semi-finals and Grand Finale. However, for the Schools the contest itself began several months ago, with each school conducting their intra school qualifying tests, before forwarding their best teams to the 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. Top six finishing teams each from schools and open category competed in two separate semifinals. The top three teams from each semifinals went into grand finals. 

The inaugural 2014 as well as the subsequent four years from 2015 to 2018 events were resounding successes with more than 100 teams (3 members a side) from different nationalities, age groups, professions and schools participating for the Crown. A Quiz contest questions and determines a person’s ability to quickly ram and promptly retrieve the correct answer from ones’ repository of knowledge matched equally by unlimited imagination and zest.