The grand final of the Eastern Online IV 2020 was won by Cornell 3 (Dylan Young, Amaar Jeyasothy) in Closing Opposition, speaking against McGill 1 (Micaela Lewis, Naomi Panovka) in Opening Government, Yale 1 (Eva Quinones, Ko Lyn Cheang) in Opening Opposition, and Brandeis-NU Hybrid (Ravi Simon, Tanay Patri) in Closing Government on the motion "THW spend all of Jeff Bezos's money." The debate was chaired by Marlene Pierce, with a panel of Klaudia Maciejewska, Rob Ruiz, Chris Pang, Germaine Barrett, Niki Linganur, and Reed. In  the ESL Final Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology 1 (Shirsha Songshoptak, Tameer Hossain) took ...

The team Idli and Sambar (Salil Mitra, Nitin Subramanian; Duke) has won the Grand Final of the VIT Debating Tournament Round Robin 2020 from Closing Government. They debated the motion "This House Believes That Imran Khan should pivot away from China, and towards India" against the other finalists Seamus and Oliver (Oliver Cummins, Seamus Dove; Sydney) in Opening Government; Liminal Spaces Debating (Samuel Scheuer, Braedon Lehman; Tübingen/Berlin); and MISRIT OO (Daniel Monteiro, Atul RH). The Grand Final was judged by Vishaka Raj, Shantanu Bariar, Abhilaksh Sharma, Yash Varshan Thirani, Omkar Masurkar, and Bansal Kartik, with Reed chairing. The top speaker of the tournament was ...

This article will review recruitment and outreach projects some debate societies have undertaken. It does not attempt to provide  recommendations / criticisms of different policies and responses. The first part of this series profiled experiences of organizers, coaches, and debaters in different parts of the world. The third part of this series will discuss dealing with COVID-19 funding cuts. If you would like to share projects on your local circuit or have comments please feel free to email me at spruced@tuta.io Featuring Gaini Ibragimova, DC "Parassat": With a 20 year history, DC "Parassat" is one of the oldest and strongest debate clubs ...

NU A (Tashkenbayev Mukhtar, Alisher Juzgenbayev) won the 2020 Parassat Open. They were speaking from Opening Opposition against ULU A (Maurice Coutiel, Przemek Stolarski) in Opening Government, Ateneo AV (Luigi Alcaneses, Mikko Vitug) in Closing Government, and Stay hear hear (Hadar Goldberg, Lior Sokol) in Closing Opposition on the motion: "This House Opposes the commercialization of competitive debating (such as for profit debate training, paid workshops, paying IAs a salary, paying pros to speak with wealthy beginners, etc)". The adjudication panel was chaired by Milla Huuskonen. Judging with her were Alikhan Kazinov, Josef Moscovici, Katharina Margarita Jansen, and Miri Muntean. The Pro-Am final ...

The Asia Queer Open 2020 was won by I like it like that (Meabh, Arctic Monkies) in Opening Government, speaking against Don't stop me now in Opening Opposition (Sam Huang, Daniel Maier Gant), Feeling Myself  (Chris Morillo, Mia Stone-Molloy) in Closing Government; and Laws of Attraction (Gwen Stearns, Pandora's Boxx) in Closing Opposition. The debate was on the motion "This House Prefers representation of queer characters in media whose stories do not centre around their queerness" and chaired by Brian Wong. Judging with them were Ellen Page, David Benardy, Ploopy, Prashasti Saxena, Rachel Homnick, and Ryan Patrick Thalari. The Pro Am ...

This article will profile the experiences of organizers, coaches, and debaters in different parts of the world. It does not attempt to provide a comprehensive picture of the competitive debate scene in that region, nor to provide recommendations / criticisms of different policies and responses. The second part of this series will review strategies for virtual recruitment and outreach. If you would like to share projects on your local circuit or have comments please feel free to email me at spruced@tuta.io Organizing & Institutional Experiences with Virtual Debate The Participants: Vishal - "I've been involved with debating and judging for the University of Malaysia ...