This Blog has now moved to idebate.org/worlddebating - all future posts will be made there!

26 February 2011

Live debates from Belgrade Open

If you want to watch some live debates today IDEA have a live stream set up for the Belgrade Open.  It's similar to the setup from Worlds in Botswana but this time all the streams are in one place and there is an integrated twitter fees.

You can access the site at http://www.idebate.org/bgopen/ and it will go live during rounds.

24 February 2011

Galway Euros to hold new registration process

To the Debaters of Europe,

I write this email with great disappointment. The registration process which took place yesterday for EUDC Galway was unfortunately unsuccessful and we must hold a new one.

During registration there was a short window in which the system failed to record entered data such that all those who registered at the time were not oted as having done so. While we have the vast majority of the
participants, owing to the fact that a handful of institutions were left out we feel that the only fair thing to do in this circumstance is to re-run registration. To proceed with the current list of registered teams would not recognise the actual order in which institutions registered and while we know that it will inconvenience many of you to go through the process again we hope that you will accommodate us in the interests of fairness.

We will be running an entirely new registration system, built from the ground up. We want to be sure that this problem will not happen again. As such we have moved the date of registration on the new system to Wednesday March the 2nd at 12 noon GMT. We require this time to ensure that problems such as yesterday's are not experienced again. We are going to great lengths to ensure that this new system is reliable and as such we will be making it available all subsequent hosts of Euros so they do not have to go to the lengths and expense we have.

Please be aware that no institution is exempt from re-registration. In order to ensure that the registration process is fair and accurate, we require all institutions to submit a registration on March 2nd.

Again, I would like to apologise sincerely on behalf of myself and the entire Org Comm for letting you down in this manner and to assure you that every action will be taken to ensure that the registration process will be
successful this time.

Yours Sincerely,
Nollaig O' Scannlainn.
Convenor Galway EUDC 2011

Calling the result of the final Irish election debate

Here is the article I submitted to http://www.electiondebate.org/ about last night's debate between the leaders of the three, currently, largest political parties.  I think most people, myself included, will be relieved they are finally over and those of us in Ireland can finally get down to voting on Friday.

This was the long awaited three way debate between Enda Kenny (FG), Michael Martin (FF) and Eamon Gilmore (Labour). After some fairly bland opening statements the debate started divided into a number of sections.



Economy: At times this felt like it was going around in circles partly because most of this had already been trashed out in the earlier debates so they all knew what the others were going to say. Also the moderator Miriam O’Callaghan had a habit of asking questions that have been dealt with 5 minutes before which didn’t help. In this section Kenny did well and probably came out on top mainly because he refused to be dragged down into the row. At times he looked like a bored parent trying to ignore two children squabbling. It would have been nice to see more passion from him but he focused on his core answers and because he refused to get into a row he was able to clearly put his arguments across. Gilmore was probably stylistically better at times but his facts didn’t seem as strong as Kenny who had clearly well researched backup data for his proposals. Throughout this section Martin was being hammered for his record in government and clearly expected this and decided to go back to his strategy of attack being the best form of defence which worked well in the first debate. However this time he ran into a tag team. When he attacked Kenny, Gilmore would come in next and attack him. When he attacked Gilmore the statesman like Kenny would come in and scold Martin for his past performances. At the end of this Martin looked frustrated.

Tax and cuts: In this section Kenny was under more attack on his policies. Telling people to look up www.finegael.ie to get the details just struck me as a cop out. He seemed unable to answer the questions and was resorting back to stock prepared answers and he and got pulled on it when Martin highlighted Kenny’s standard lines of Legacy, 5 year plan and fist in the air. Martin was aggressive on the attack accusing both Kenny and Gilmore of not being specific. The fact that he didn’t give a lot of detail beyond “we have published detailed budgets for each department” may not have given any more detail than the others but it sounded more convincing. Gilmore drifted out of the debate for a while but was strong in defence of his policies and well capable to bring the fight back to Martin’s record in Government.

Jobs: This section felt like it lacked some focus not helped by O’Callaghan asking strange questions (talk about how we can make the banks increase credit flowing to businesses but don’t mention the banks in your answer). Stylistically they were all fairly level. Gilmore did well on catching the other two on flaws such as the nature of strategic state assets. He just about shaded this segment for me but at this point it felt as though the debate was taking a breather for a few minutes.


Health: In this section we were back to Kenny and Gilmore teaming up to attack Martin on his record. In a similar strategy to the first section when Martin would attack one of the others the third would come in and force Martin back on the defensive. At times it was a withering assault on Martin’s record. The only blows Martin managed to land in return were both on Kenny in relation to some flaws in Kenny’s Dutch health model and on losing 8000 health care workers from the system. Gilmore’s proposal to retain but reform the HSE seemed to get less scrutiny and came across as a more balanced approach.


The last two segments (Social Justice and Leadership) were more closing statements than a debate.


So in terms of the winners or losers in the debate it’s tight to call a winner but for me there is a clear loser. Martin comes third because his attack approach now came across as anger and frustration rather than conviction over what he was saying. He found himself out gunned and couldn’t avoid the attacks on his record in government. Kenny and Gilmore both had to achieve different things in this and to a certain degree they will both have succeeded in that. Kenny while suffering a few blows from Martin and perhaps overplaying the aloof statesman strategy in the first segment will be happy that he didn’t make any major blunders and landed a few blows himself. Gilmore will, by now, have given up on any chance of being Taoiseach and that freed his hands a bit more than the first two way debate. He could engage more in his natural aggressive style and also benefitted from his proposals not coming under the same scrutiny as Kenny’s and Martin’s. Kenny and Gilmore will both be happy going away from tonight’s debate but Martin won’t be as happy as he was after the first two debates.


To conclude while this was a debate between individuals if I was marking it like a worlds style debate I feel a team debate style oral adjudication is actually quite appropriate. It was an opposition sweep with the 2nd opposition team (Gilmore) taking the debate narrowly from 1st Opposition (Kenny) both stylistically and on the fact that more of his “extensions” were still standing at the end of the round having been largely ignored by a government side (Martin) who saw his case dismantled.

23 February 2011

Results of SEO 2011

Here is an e-mail from the debateasia mailing list.  It details the result of the recent SEO debating tournament.  It also seems to have been an initial dry run for many of the systems that will be used at next year's Worlds which is interesting to note this far out.

After 7 days of competition, we are proud to announce the outcome of the recently concluded 2011 Southeast Asian English Olympics. Among the universities and high schools which participated in all the events, Bina Nusantara University (BiNus University) emerged as the institutional champion with 47 olympic points. They are followed by Institut Teknologi Bandung-Indonesia and University Teknologi Petronas –Malaysia with 25 points. You can go to www.seo.mybnec.org for the complete list of winners.


We also would like to congratulate the winner of the Debate Olympics:


MAIN BREAK
Champions: Institute of Technology Bandung A - ITB A (Luthfi and Karina)
1st Runner-Up: Institute of Technology Bandung B - ITB B (Rifan and Andhika)
2nd Runner-Up: BiNus University - BNU A (Sabar and Raden)
Grand Finalist: University of Indonesia A - UI A (Ahdiat and Roderick)

Champion and runners-up were each respectively awarded Olympics medals (gold, silver, bronze), cash prize of 300 USD-200USD-100USD denominated in Rupiahs and some other sponsor packages. The finals was held at @America, the hi-tech US’ cultural center at Pacific Place Mall, Jakarta.


NOVICE BREAK
Champions: STBA Teknokrat Lampung B - Teknokrat B (Sheilla and Nurul)
Finalist: Bina Bangsa School A - BBS A (Claudia and Tara), University of Jenderal Soedirman C - UnSoed C (Riezki and Zaenul), SMAN 3 Bandung A (Lidya and Hurriyah)




The top ten speakers are:
1.(Tied) Roderick - UI A, Luthfi - ITB A, Ahdiat - UI A
4. Andika - ITB B
5. Rifan - ITB B
6. (Tied) Phodiso - UCTI A, Karina - ITB A
8. Mark - UCTI A
9. (Tied) Alisa and Arpaporn - Thailand National Debate Team A, Dimas - UI B


Best novice speaker:
Fildza Nabila Avianti - UGM A


The main break finals was judged by:
Chair: Jayson Gaspar Maulit (Phillipines),
Panelists: TJ (Thailand), Azrul Izzam (Malaysia), Buena Bernal (Phillipines), Rose Lyn (Phillipines),Ely Zosa (Phillipines), Muhammad Akbar Walenna (Indonesia), Melda Mahardita Sari (Indonesia), Huda Fitri Amalia (Indonesia)


As a quick summary, the 2011 SEO employed round zero in order to make sure of the quality of judges as well as to give the participants time to practice. We also had 5 preliminary rounds, quarter final main break and novice final break. The tournament was composed of 4 countries in the ASEAN region given the adjudicators and debaters participation: Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysia, and of course with one fascinating additional: England.


We are also delighted to announce that the 2011 SEO has become a very valuable learning platform for the participants in preparing for the upcoming De La Salle Worlds 2012 at Phillipines due to the quality of motions, worlds-standard speaker scoring scale, adjudication test and feedback system.


Furthermore, we are proud to say that the 2011 SEO employed an online system in wherein the scores were inputted online. This meant less papers, less runner involvement, and more efficient tabulation. Kudos to the innovation performed by Krisna and Rendy- our Binus tabulators.

The latter will join the Tabulation team in De La Salle Worlds 2012.


With regard to the adjudicator tabs, it is also important to note that the tab is not going to be released, customary to the execution of De La Salle worlds. The philosophical reason behind is we're under the assumption that adjudicators are not in competition.


Below are the summary of the motions for further practice purposes for everyone: (other details can be seen at http://seo.mybnec.org/debate except for Round Zero - it cannot be displayed as the results are not carried forward to the next round and except for novice finals)


ROUND ZERO: This house believes that countries with problems of overpopulation should pay willing citizens to sterilise themselves
ONE: This house would directly elect captains of national sport teams
TWO: This house believes that state funded health services should be provided by competitively tendered contracts by private companies, without direct state provision
THREE: This house believes that it is legitimate for governments to deliberately lie to their citizens in times of war
FOUR: This house believes that individuals in developed countries have a bigger moral responsibility to poor people in the developing world than their own families
FIVE: This house believes that democratic countries should punish communication companies which cooperate with oppressive governments’ censorship policies
QUARTERS: This house would ban advertisements that use gender stereotypes
SEMIS: This house believes that post-genocide states should punish the perpetrators of the genocide both visibly and publicly for the long term
NOVICE FINAL: This house believes that developing countries should ban family members of the Head of State/Government from running for the same position
GRAND FINAL: This house would ban the celebration of martyrs


Throughout this post we would like to thank EVERYONE involved in the event- OrgComm, participants, Liaison Officers, Hospitality Officers and other officers, Adjudication Core, Subsidized Judges, Country Ambassadors- sorry if I'm missing anyone- needless to say, every little detail of your contribution means EVERYTHING for us. :) And of course, we would like to humbly apologize for every single inconveniences we've might performed during the events. Please give us more suggestions to improve the 2012 SEO throughout possible channels (see below).


This concludes the summary of the 2011 SEO afterglow. All in all, if you have further questions, feedbacks, constructive criticisms, suggestions, complaints of the tournament (be it debate, other tournament, or other issues such as food, logistics, hospitality -anything that have been performed/not performed), particularly that has not been delivered in the questionnaires we've distributed in the D-day, please send them to the committee through the Convenor, seonapis@yahoo.com or you can send them to me gunawan.bryan@gmail.com.


I'll make sure I'll forward it to the committee or related parties to be processed, evaluated and documented for next year's Olympics. If you happen to miss the community- HEY! don't be sad, we have the facebook page "the 2011 SEO community". join us there.

We sincerely hope that the 2011 SEO will advance all of the participants among ASEAN countries, bring Indonesian and ASEAN's debating scene to the international community, and contribute to global debating scene as a whole throughout any possible channels we've performed this year.


This is the 2011 SEO signing off - SEE YOU IN THE 2012 SEO next year! :)

Bryan Gunawan - BiNus University, Indonesia - Chief Adjudicator & one of the advisors to the club (BNEC) and the event (the 2011 SEO), along with the Deputy Chief Adjudicators: Sam Block (England), Jayson Gaspar Maulit (Phillipines), Azrul Izzam (Malaysia), and TJ (Thailand), and with the OrgComm (Convened by Yohanes Santiawan Napis and team)

22 February 2011

DLSU Worlds 2012: ME and Africa DCA Announcement

Dear World Debating Community,

Many thanks to all who have been involved in the application process for the final DCA for DLSU WUDC 2012, whether as applicants, or as contributors of feedback. We were again struck by the subtlety and insight of much of that feedback.

We are pleased to announce that Joe Roussos will be joining, and completing, our team. We are very much looking forward to working with him.

Many thanks,

Sam Block & Lucinda David
Chief Adjudicators
DLSU WUDC 2012

Final Irish leaders debate tonight

Last week's 5-way debate
The fourth (or third if you don't include the Irish language one) and final leaders debate in the Irish General Election campaign will be on this evening at 9:35pm local time.

The debate will feature the three main party leaders (Enda Kenny, Michael Martin, Eamon Gilmore).  It will be hosted by Miriam O’Callaghan a vetern host of a number of leaders debates from past campaigns.

Unlike last week this one will open with brief statements from each leader and then go into the questions.  It is scheduled to last an hour and there will be no audience.  If you want to follow it from overseas it will be available on http://www.rte.ie/

Once again the team at Election Debates will be judging it as independent observers.  Check in there later tonight for the adjudications.

Don't miss the SciencePo IV


This year's  SciencesPo IV, hosted in Le Havre, Normandy, France will be between the 7th-9th of May (Saturday to Monday), and the finals will be attended by the Director of SciencesPo --Monsieur Richard Descoings. Website is already up and running at http://intervarsity2011.org/, and registration will start really soon!
Mark the dates on your calendar, folks! It will be amazing!

Paris IV

The Paris IV will be held from the 1st to the 3rd of April.  
The preliminary rounds will be held on Friday and Saturday with the final on Saturday night. Sunday you will be free to explore Paris.

Over the weekend there will be amazing socials with lots of food and wine available.

Ben Wollgar is the Chief adjudicator and there will be 5 minute speeches in the preliminary rounds.

Registration is 45EUR/Debater plus 10EUR for 2 nights crash accomodation if required.

For further details e-mail  stephan.nunner@sciences-po.org

21 February 2011

Leeds EUDC 2012 promotional video

Leeds have released a promotional video in advance of their bid to host the European Debating Championships in 2012. I'm sure there will be other videos from both Leeds and Belgrage (and any other bidders) between now and the council meeting in Galway. I'll post them as they pop up on my reader.

20 February 2011

Kings Inns win Irish Times 2011


Mark Thuillier winner of the individual award.
 The Kings Inns Team of  Lorcan Price and Áine Hartigan have won the 2011 Irish Times Debating Championships (the Irish Nationals).  The final took place at Griffith College and the motion was "This House would default".

TCD Law (Ross O’Mahony and Mark Thuillier) were runners up in the team competition.  Mark Thuillier also took home the prize for best individual (an award that is open to both team speakers and individual speakers). Janine Ryan (UCD L&H) was the individual runner up.

The final was made up of teams and individuals from TCD, UCD, Dublin City University and Kings Inns.

For more information see the Irish Times article here