The Karnataka Quiz Association (or KQA) was founded in 1983 by the late

Wing Commander Wing commander (Wg Cdr in the RAF, the IAF, and the PAF, WGCDR in the RNZAF and RAAF, formerly sometimes W/C in all services) is a senior commissioned rank in the British Royal Air Force and air forces of many countries which have historical ...

G.R.Mulky, Deepak Murdeshwar, Rajeev Gowda, Thomas Uthup, K.N.Mahabala, Thribhuvan Kumar, P.Raju and Jagadish Raja. It is a non-profit association devoted to popularizing the mindsport among students and the general public in

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

and beyond. Contests are held regularly in the following categories: Middle School, High School, Junior College, College, and Open-to-all. In addition, specialist quizzes in the areas of

Literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...

Entertainment Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousa ...

Music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...

Art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

Comics a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate ...

and Business are held every year. The KQA holds events in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

and

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

. Apart from holding contests, the KQA also conducts workshops in quizzing for school students and provides quiz-masters for events held by other organisations. The KQA has an informal membership policy. People interested in quizzing sign up to receive a free email newsletter about forthcoming contests. The newsletter goes out to about 2000 people at present. KQA quizzes normally used to take place once every month at the

Daly Memorial Hall The Daly Memorial Hall, is a heritage building located in Bangalore, Karnataka that houses the Mythic Society. The Mythic society, founded in 1909, is a pioneering institution of Catholic-Indic studies in South India. Daly Memorial Hall, built ...

, a charming British-era building on Nrupatunga Road. Now, however the venue has shifted to Arakere Hall (also known as the IAT Hall) on Queen's Road. KQA's flagship event, ASKQANCE, is held in the third week of June every year and comprises three quizzes, one each in the School, Corporate and Open Categories. The KQA also holds a solo quiz titled Mahaquizzer as well as a solo quiz event called MindSweep across India's several quizzing cities annually. Since 2003, the KQA has collaborated with the TI Foundation in conducting the Jack Kilby Quiz in

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

and

Technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

for high school students.

ASKQANCE

The quizzing season in Bangalore has always begun with an open quiz in June to mark the anniversary of the founding of the KQA. This tradition was reworked around the time of the 20th anniversary in 2003 to include a School Quiz, a Corporate Quiz and the customary Open Quiz. This festival of quizzing was christened ASKQANCE to celebrate the ethic of thinking laterally and working things out. ASKQANCE draws teams from other quizzing centres such as

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part ...

Cochin Kochi (), also known as Cochin ( ) ( the official name until 1996) is a major port city on the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea, which is a part of the Arabian Sea. It is part of the district of Ernakulam in the state of K ...

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...

and

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million ...

The Texas Instruments Science and Technology Quiz

The TI Foundation has conducted a quiz in science and technology for school students since 2003 in collaboration with the KQA. The quiz was originally named after Nobel laureate

Jack Kilby Jack St. Clair Kilby (November 8, 1923 – June 20, 2005) was an American electrical engineer who took part (along with Robert Noyce of Fairchild) in the realization of the first integrated circuit while working at Texas Instruments (TI) in 1 ...

who designed the first

Integrated Circuit An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...

while working for

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globall ...

but is now known by the name of the company. The first three editions of the quiz, hosted by Ochintya Sharma, were held in Bangalore, and attracted participation from more than 200 schools in the region. The quiz went national in 2006, with winners from Bangalore, Chennai and New Delhi facing off at a grand finale in Delhi. In the year 2008, the contest was extended to two more cities - Pune and Kolkata.

Texas Instruments Science & Technology Quiz winners

2003: National Public School (Indiranagar) 2004: Delhi Public School, Bangalore 2005: Sri Kumaran Children's Home 2006: Bangalore Winners—National Public School (Indiranagar)
2006: Chennai Winners—SRDF Vivekananda Vidyalaya
2006: New Delhi Winners—DPS RK Puram 2006: National Winners—National Public School (Indiranagar) 2007: New Delhi Winners—Bluebell
2007: Chennai Winners—Vidya Mandir, Mylapore
2007: Bangalore Winners—Sri Kumaran Children's Home 2007: National Winners—Vidya Mandir, Mylapore, Chennai 2008: Bangalore Winners—National Public School, Indiranagar
2008: Delhi Winners—Delhi Public School, RK Puram
2008: Pune Winners—Vikhe Patil School
2008: Kolkata Winners—Don Bosco Kolkata
2008: Chennai Winners—Padma Sheshadri Bal Bhavan, Chennai 2008: National Winners—Padma Sheshadri Bal Bhavan, Chennai 2009: Kolkata Winners—Birla High School
2009: New Delhi Winners—Delhi Public School, Ghaziabad
2009: Chennai Winners—PSBB Sr Secondary School, Nungambakkam
2009: Pune Winners—Abhinava Vidyalaya English Medium High School
2009: Bangalore Winners—Sri Kumaran Public School (ICSE) 2009: National Winners—Sri Kumaran Public School (ICSE) - Bangalore 2010: National Winners—Sri Kumaran Public School (ICSE) - Bangalore 2011: Kolkata Winners—Nalanda Talent School, VIZAG
2011: New Delhi Winners—Amity International School, SAKET
2011: Chennai Winners—Sri Sankara Sr Sec School, Adyar
2011: Mumbai Winners—St. Augustine's High School
2011: Bangalore Winners—Sri Vidya Mandir High School 2011: National Winners—Nalanda Talent School, VIZAG 2013: Kolkata Winners—Don Bosco
2013: New Delhi Winners—Amity International School, SAKET
2013: Chennai Winners—P S Senior Secondary School
2013: Mumbai Winners—St. Augustine's High School
2013: Bangalore Winners—Sri Kumaran Children's Home(CBSE) 2013: National Winners—Sri Kumaran Children's Home(CBSE)

MahaQuizzer

Mahaquizzer was begun in 2005 as an attempt to popularise KQA-style quizzing in other parts of the country. The quiz is a solo championship requiring contestants to try out 150 questions over 90 minutes on the same day at different venues across the country. The first edition of the quiz was held in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Thiruvananthapuram and Mumbai. In 2019, the contest was held in over 20 cities. A version for school students, titled Junior Mahaquizzer, was started in 2019. Winners are declared for each city and the overall winner is awarded the MahaQuizzer title for that year. Since 2006, the Wing Commander G.R. Mulky Memorial Trophy for Quizzing Excellence has been awarded to the overall winner each year.

MahaQuizzer winners

2005: Anustup Datta
2006: Swaminathan G.
2007: Samanth Subramanian
2008: Arul Mani
2009: Anustup Datta
2010: Shouvik Guha
2011: Arul Mani
2012: Jayashree Mohanka
2013: Anustup Datta
2013*: Vikram Joshi
2014: Vinoo Sanjay
2015: Vinoo Sanjay
2016: Samanth Subramanian
2017: Rahul Kottalgi, Vinoo Sanjay
2018: Thejaswi Udupa * A one-off KQA 30th Anniversary Special edition of Mahaquizzer was held

Go Ogle

KQA also holds an online solo quiz championship titled Go Ogle on New Year's Day. The quiz attracts participants from a small band of diehard quizzers across the world.

Go Ogle winners

2006: Anustup Datta, Bangalore
2007: Siddhartha Sen, Bangalore
2008: Kiran Vijayakumar, Chennai
2009: Jayakanthan, Chennai
2010: Arun Hiregange, Bangalore
2011: Thejaswi Udupa, Bangalore

Mega-Whats

Mega-Whats is the National Open Quizzing Championship, begun in 2009. It is a general quiz open to teams that may consist of a maximum of 4 members. The contest is held simultaneously in several Indian cities on the second Sunday in May. The top 16 teams, including the top 8 city winners, compete against each other in the Mega-Whats Face-off the following June during the KQA Anniversary. Until 2012, the quiz was held on the second Sunday of December, and since then has shifted to the second Sunday in May.

List of winners of Mega-Whats

2009: QED, Chennai, 67 (QED, Chennai)
2010: QED, Chennai, 76 (Insignificant Others, Chennai)
2011: QED, Chennai, 85 (QED, Chennai)
2012: MetaQuizziks, Bengaluru, 79 (QED, Chennai)
2014: MetaQuizziks, Bengaluru, 86 (QED, Chennai)
2015: QED, Chennai, 86 (QED, Chennai)
2016: We Are Like This (W)Only, Bengaluru, 72 (Remembrance of Things Fast, Chennai)
2017: QED, Chennai, 84 (We Are Like This (W)Only, Bengaluru)
2018: Aardvarks, New Delhi, 83 (We Are Like This (W)Only, Bengaluru)
2019: Remembrance of Things Fast, Bengaluru, 70 (QED, Chennai)
(Mega-Whats Face-off winners in brackets)

References

External links

*
Article by Harshini Vakkalanka in The Hindu, 2011

{{Bangalore topics Student quiz competitions Organisations based in Bangalore Competitions in India 1983 establishments in Karnataka Organizations established in 1983