Results of the WUDC Berlin 2013 Finals
The WUDC Berlin 2013 are officially over, and the debating world has three new World Champions, one new coming WUDC host and a lot of other prices and winners. But first of all, congratulations to the winners of the EFL-final, Porto A, as well as to the winners of the ESL final, Bangladesh A, and Here is what we would call a preliminary overview – no guarantee on results being complete for the moment.
In the EFL final, the teams from Porto A, Freiburg A, Tokyo A and Bucharest A debated the motion „This house welcomes the decline of the United States as a sole superpower“. World EFL Champion is the team from Porto A. The honorary jury named Ary Ferreira da Cunha from Porto best speaker of the final.
In the ESL final, the teams from Leiden A, RRIS A, Leiden C, BRAC Bangladesh A debated the motion „This house believes that representative democracies with large numbers of foreigners living in their territory (on temporary or permanent basis) should create seats to represent them in parliament“. World ESL Champion is the team from BRAC Bangladesh A. The honorary jury named Rogier Baart from Leiden C (Netherlands) best speaker of the final. Ratib Mortuza Ali from Bangladesh A won the price of the auditions darling in an open vote of the audience.
In the Open final, Otago A (Alec Dawson, Kieran Bunn), Sydney B (Paul Karp, Dominic Bowes), Auckland A (Ben Milsom, Stephanie Thompson) and Monash B (Nita Rao, James Beavis). World Debating Champion 2013 is the team from Monash B. The honorary jury named James Beavis best speaker. Most debated fact of the winners: These Worlds were the first to have a 48 team brake, thus allowing 48 teams through Mock-octo finals to proceed to the Octo-Finals. Monash B broke on 48 from the preliminary rounds. The motion of the Open Final was „This house would not allow religious communities to expel members on basis of views or actions that contradict their doctrinal teachings“.
- The winner of the Worlds Maters‘ Cup is the team from United Kingdom with Jack Watson, Sam Block and James Hardy. They won the Grand Final with the motion „This house would introduce free schooling“.
- The winner of the Public Speaking Competition is: ?
- Top of the tab speaker of WUDC 2013 are: Pam Cohn (ULU A), Chris Bisset (Monash A)
- Top of ESL speaker tab is: Martin Kiik (Harvard A)
- Top of EFL speaker tab is: Ary Ferreira da Cunha (Porto A)
All results as well as the speaker tabs can be found here.
Check out all the photos, videos and Tweets from WUDC13 here, http://eventifier.co/event/wudc13
I must confess I was most disappointed by the finale of the WUDC Berlin 2013. Not in my intention to talk about the disappointing performance of the finalists: This would probably open a never end-ing debate. But I would like to voice my utter disappointment regarding the most than poor organi-sation of the event: Audiovisual support was miserable (queries to the speaker by debate partici-pants could not be heard when they stood; the announcing slides came late, if at all, etc.). The time management was incredibly bad. Albeit we are used to that academic events happen CT this is hardly acceptable at a world championship, in spite of being a contest among universities, and by no means on the extent that we had to endure. The moderator of the event was clearly not in con-dition to orderly fulfil his role. And last but not least, the lack of attendants made possible that peo-ple continued going in and out during the sessions or that they remained in the cafeteria (within the auditorium!) their loud conversations thus further contributing to make impossible to concentrate in which was debated.
My hope is that the organisers may have learned for future instances.
As the person responsible for the organisation of the final, I’d like to respond to some of the points raised above. First, I am sorry if the final did – neither in substance nor in style – live up to your expectations.
– It is true that it was at times difficult to understand POI’s if people stood. It was a conceptual flaw to put fixed mics on the tables. They’ll get handsets next time.
– While the EFL final started with a delay, the ESL and the open final were on schedule.
– We can hardly keep people from going in and out of the hall if they want to do so. This is rather a matter of manners in general than something we can control.