Participants from across the country turned up at PHD House, New Delhi wondering as much about the quick touch and go of the Delhi winters as they did about what was in store for them at Uniqorn. Apart from being a platform for asking questions and seeking answers, Uniqorn attempted to be a platform for upcoming artists to exhibit their craft in front of a cultured audience, a luxury only few artists can afford.
When the registrations were going on and the audience was settling in, Ratik Puri, a young Keyboard player, was given the platform to showcase his skills and he played a wonderful set. During the game between the prelims and the finals, the duo of Karan and Akshay enthralled the audience with some peppy Bollywood covers.
The written preliminary round had an interesting variation*. After having done multiple preliminary quizzes with 25 Qs being asked looking for teams giving the most correct answers, a slightly modified format was executed. Teams were permitted to double a maximum of 10 Questions. This was an added layer of strategy to the plain jane 25 Qn shootout. I can’t confirm but I hope this made the participants rack their brains a little more.
Watch the Prelims-
From the preliminary round 5 teams qualified directly for the finals while 6 teams got an extra chance at making it to the finals by way of a (short and sweet) Semifinal. Interestingly, SAIL qualified by giving only 1 correct answer out of 8 questions. Unbelievable how they Sailed through is an understatement. Watch how NTPC and Capgemini made a (sorry about it) mess of the opportunities-
Onwards to the grand finale we go. There were 6 teams from 5 different corporates – (in order of seating) SAIL, Indian Oil Corporation, TCS, SAIL, Deloitte and NTPC. There were 5 rounds in a format that I have become a little too comfortable with. 2 rounds of passing. 1 round of progressive clues. 1 round of topic selection. And then finally, a 6-8 question shoot out. Anyway, the final began with some brilliant answers coming from not just the teams on stage but also from the members of the audience. Most notably, identifying McDowell’s as the sponsor of Mohun Bagan and the KVIC calendar not featuring Gandhi on the cover in various years. By the end of Round 2, TCS was way ahead of everybody else at 65 with Deloitte struggling to keep pace at 45.
In a rare moment of exercising freedom of expression, TCS (Team 3) finds it difficult to conceal the excitement of leading early on in the quiz.
In round 3, SAIL (Team 1) woke up from the slumber and started troubling Indian Oil who missed some easy ones and stayed put at 29. And TCS and Deloitte flew further away from the pack with 93 and 55 respectively. Realistically, for the other teams, it was officially time to say good bye to the 1 lakh and 50,000 prizes and compete for the 30,000 2nd runner up prize on offer.
And so after Round 4, with TCS breaching the 3-digit figure I had to ask them to stop playing so that the others can compete for the podium. They obliged, gracefully. But there wasn’t much to show for it as the teams left in contention for the 3rd place couldn’t collect any points on offer. In fact, by collecting negatives, they fell further back.
Final Scores-
TCS – 103
Deloitte – 75
SAIL – 37
Watch the final here-
There was also a Best Quizzing Company Prize that was given out. It was for the organization with the best performance overall amongst all the corporates that participated. The prize went to SAIL, who had 2 teams in the Final and 1 team in the Semi Final. Congratulations!
*’Interesting’ was confirmed by couple of participants