We extend our special thanks and mentions to Joel Jose Varghese, Shreyas Chaudhari, Shyam Mohan, Kishore Yadav, Vishnu Kumar, Kamala Devi, and Farzin Famees for sharing their thoughts with us.
The Inter IIT Sports Meet is the annual sports tournament of the Indian Institutes of Technology. Organised every December, with the Aquatics events held separately in October, this meet is the heart and soul of the IIT sporting culture. Witnessing an assemblage of over 3000 athletes from all over the country, this annual face-off between the IITs promises to be the congregation of immense talent, unparalleled endurance, willpower and hard work. The seven old IITs – IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Madras, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Kanpur, IIT Guwahati, and IIT Roorkee take turns hosting this event, while all 23 IITs participate. The 2015 Meet was supposed to be held at IIT Madras but was unfortunately washed out due to unpredictable rains. This year – in 2017 – however, IIT Madras has been bestowed with the honour of hosting the 52nd edition of The Inter-IIT Sports Meet.
With the much-awaited 9-day event having commenced today, the IITM sports scene is buzzing with excitement. We took this opportunity to catch up with the cores of all the departments of the Inter-IIT Organising Team and find out what kind of work goes into organizing a meet of this enormous scale. Setting the battlefield for one of the biggest nationwide sporting tournaments is no mean feat and we present to you the details of all the different responsibilities involved in making this sporting extravaganza a grand success.
The Events Team
Team Composition:
Two Events Cores head the two sub-teams; ProShows and Lectures, along with the Sports Sub-Committee. The ProShows and Lectures team is headed by one super-coordinator, under whom there are seven coordinators. The Sports Sub-Committee consists of twenty-six coordinators who are distributed among all the thirteen sports.
Roles and Responsibilities of the Team:
The Events Team is split into two: ProShows and Lectures, and the Sports Sub-Committee.
The ProShows and Lectures team is responsible for conducting the inaugural and valedictory ceremonies, and the professional shows that happen during the Meet. This generally involves calling up Chief Guests and professional artists for the entertainment of the contingents.
The Sports Sub-Committee has the important responsibility of ensuring smooth flow of information between the playing grounds of all 13 sports and the Gymkhana Officials and live updates of scores on the websites.
Team Activities over the Semester:
Rehan Poncha and Sandeep Sejwal were brought in as Chief Guests for the Opening and Closing ceremonies of the Aquatics Meet. During the Aquatics Meet, Atul Khatri performed in SAC. This attracted a huge crowd of 1500+ people. Zephyrtone headlined the EDM night, which the contingents seemed to thoroughly enjoy. It is worth noting that the team used none of the Gymkhana’s budget for organising these shows; all the money used was from the sponsorship amount obtained by the Sponsorship and Publicity team.
For the Main Meet, the team has decided the Chief Guests and Guests of Honours for various sports. A Comedy Night, as well as a Popular Night, have been organized during the Main Meet. The contingents will also have a variety of informal events for leisure during the nights, with movies being screened for most days for their entertainment.
The Sponsorship and Publicity Team
Team Composition:
This is a team of about 12 coordinators, 4 super-coordinators, led by two cores.
Roles and Responsibilities of the Team:
Both the sponsorship and the publicity aspects of the meet are handled by this team. It handles the sponsorship front by getting cash/kind deals to make the Meet a little more than just a bland sports competition. The money is spent on players’ kits/supplements, Professional Shows, etc. On the publicity front, the team handles the Facebook and Instagram pages, and the YouTube channel.
Team Activities over the Semester:
Along with meeting the funding requirements of the Meet, the semester was interspersed with many PR events, the biggest one being ImpactRun, through which around ₹ 17 lakhs was raised over a period of a month. During the Aquatics Meet, the entire Food Arena was set up by this team.
The Facilities and Requirements Team
Team Composition:
Two cores are in charge of a team of about 4 super-coordinators and 30 coordinators.
Roles and Responsibilities of the Team:
The Facilities and Requirements team is among the most important departments of the Inter IIT organizing team. The team ensures that the Inter IIT as a whole runs smoothly, by provisioning all sorts of requirements, in the form of equipment or manpower. The team also helps organize events and provide logistical and technical support to the other departments.
Team Activities over the Semester:
The Aquatics meet was organized with the Facilities and Requirements team running the backend. A lot of general maintenance work and requirements such as preparing/printing various material, securing and setting up different kinds of equipment, and preparing different facilities for various events has kept the team busy throughout the semester. The team has been working closely with the other departments, especially with the Hospitality, Media, and Safety and Security.
The Design and Ambience Team
Team Composition:
Currently, the design team consists of 6 members. and the ambience team comprises 15 coordinators working for both the Inter IIT Meet as well as Saarang.
Roles and Responsibilities of the Team:
The team fulfils all the design requirements like creating posters for publicity, designing medals and certificates, which are the manifestation of pride presented to every successful participant and contingent. They also act as a medium between the Organizing Team and the potential sponsors and the public, by conveying the proposals and announcements through brochures and posters.
The goal of the Ambience Team is to create an atmosphere for the visitors to feel welcome. The luminous cube placed at the centre of the Himalaya lawns and the lanterns in Cauvery mess and SAC, during the Aquatics Meet are the works of none other than this team.
Team Activities over the Semester:
Along with designing medals, tracksuits, jerseys and so on, this team also created a mascot and an emblem which were not present in the previous edition.
The ambience team finalized and implemented projects for publicity events, the Aquatics Meet as well as the Main Meet.
The Finance Team
Team Composition:
The Finance team is led by one core, with 5 finance managers and 5 catering coordinators working on the Finance front of the Meet.
Roles and Responsibilities of the Team:
The responsibilities of the Finance Team include mess tendering and finalizing the caterer for the Inter-IIT Mess, organising the use of the Inter-IIT mess by contingents, collecting quotations and procuring certificates and medals for the meet, budgeting and money-allocation to the other departments of the Inter-IIT Organising Team, and the collection of all bills and reimbursements.
Team Activities over the Semester:
During the semester, the team was working on organizing the Aquatics Meet. A QR code system was implemented for entry of contingents into the Inter-IIT mess. This reduced the humongous amount of manpower, which was earlier invested in verification and counting. The quality of food was inspected regularly to ensure that the contingents had the best dining experience, and all payments to the caterers were effectively settled in the stipulated time.
The Hospitality Team
Team Composition:
This is a team of 27, comprising 20 coordinators, 5 super-coordinators, and two cores.
Roles and Responsibilities of the Team:
The hospitality team takes care of transport and accommodation of guests from all the IITs. This includes participants, faculty, staff, and coaches who come as part of the contingent. There will be around 3000 people attending the meet, and the hospitality team is the primary point of contact for all these guests. As expected, this team usually has a major portion of their work as the event approaches, and after it ends, especially the days when the contingents arrive and depart.
The WebOps Team
Team Composition:
This function is managed by one core, 2 super-coordinators, and 7 coordinators.
Roles and Responsibilities of the Team:
As the name suggests, this team mainly manages all the web operations of the fest. Their first task was creating a registration portal for the contingents and the accompanying staff. They also set up the official Inter-IIT website, where one can view live score updates, along with the event details. During the Aquatics Meet, with unprecedented power cuts and monkeys breaking the LAN connection, the team worked on providing live score updates over JioFi.
Most of the Inter IIT Sports Meet Organizing team comprises people who have been a part of the contingent in different sports teams, and who have helped organize the 2015 Meet as well. On the whole, this Meet has been designed according to the visions of those who have been involved extensively in the IITM sports scene, with every contributor having personal attachments to this spectacle. Their dedication to the IIT sporting culture is unparalleled and we wish them all the very best to make the 52nd Inter-IIT Sports Meet a Grand Success.
Catch the action live at IIT Madras from December 15th to 23rd!
