Karnataka Quiz Association


The Karnataka Quiz Association was founded in 1983 by the late Wing Commander G.R.Mulky, Deepak Murdeshwar, Rajeev Gowda, Thomas Uthup, K.N.Mahabala, Thribhuvan Kumar, P.Raju and Jagadish Raja is a non-profit association devoted to popularizing the mindsport among students and the general public in Bangalore 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, Entertainment, Music, Art, Comics and Business are held every year.
The KQA holds events in English and Kannada.
Apart from holding contests, the KQA also conducts workshops in quizzing for school students and provides quizmasters 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, a charming British-era building on Nrupatunga Road. Now, however the venue has shifted to Arakere 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 and Technology 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, Hyderabad, Cochin, New Delhi and Pune.

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 who designed the first Integrated Circuit while working for Texas Instruments 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
2004: Delhi Public School, Bangalore
2005: Sri Kumaran Children's Home
2006: Bangalore Winners—National Public School
2006: Chennai Winners—SRDF Vivekananda Vidyalaya
2006: New Delhi Winners—DPS RK Puram
2006: National Winners—National Public School
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
2009: National Winners—Sri Kumaran Public School - Bangalore
2010: National Winners—Sri Kumaran Public School - 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
2013: National Winners—Sri Kumaran Children's Home

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
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

2010: QED, Chennai, 76

2011: QED, Chennai, 85

2012: MetaQuizziks, Bengaluru, 79

2014: MetaQuizziks, Bengaluru, 86

2015: QED, Chennai, 86

2016: We Are Like This Only, Bengaluru, 72

2017: QED, Chennai, 84

2018: Aardvarks, New Delhi, 83

2019: Remembrance of Things Fast, Bengaluru, 70