Yesterday the 35th World University Debating Championships were officially started by the grand Opening Ceremony. The German speaking debating circuit is represented by a strong delegation this year. Seven members of the VDCH – the Association of German Speaking University Debating Societies are comprised of ten teams and ten adjudicators.

Debating societies

Berlin Debating Union (BDU, Berlin), Debattierclub Goethes Faust Frankfurt (Frankfurt), Debattierclub Kiel, Debattierclub München (Munich), Debattierclub Münster, Wortgefechte Potsdam, Debattierklub Wien (Vienna).

The Opening Ceremony. © 2014 Matthias Carcasona

Debate teams

BDU A: Philip Schröder, Christina Dexel

BDU B: Lilian Seffer, Alexander Hans

BDU C: Pegah Maham, Christof Kebschull

Frankfurt A: Andreas Dreher, Sven Schuppener

Kiel A: Aleksandar Markovic, Rauad Abagela

Munich A: Maja Mosor, Reinhold Koch

Munich B: Benjamin Seidel, Laura Leman

Münster A: Matthias Carcasona, Teresa Widlok

Potsdam A: Mathias Hamann, Moritz Kirchner

Vienna A: Madlen Stottmeyer, Melanie Sindelar

Adjudicators

BDU: Julian Ohm, Lena Schneider, Dessislava Kirova, John Eltringham, Kai Dittmann, Patrick Ehmann, Rebecca Irvine

Munich: Anne Gaa

Vienna: Jakob Reiter, Regina Puthenpurayil

Motions of day 1

R1: This House regrets the decline of tightly integrated families.

R2: Infoslide: Climate engineering is a deliberate and large-scale intervention in earth’s climatic system in an effort to combat Global Warming. Climate engineering may take many forms; Examples include, but are not limited to, planting large forests where none previously existed, fertilizing the ocean with iron to dramatically increase the population of algae, and increasing cloud coverage so less sunlight reaches earth’s suface. This house believes that environmental movements should support climate engineering that fundamentally alters the environment, in an attempt to combat Global Warming.

R3: This House believes that in areas of socio-economic deprivation, schools should train students in vocational skills to the exclusion of the Liberal Arts.

The Tab-team gives updates on the matchups, the motions and on the results after every round on the Malaysia WUDC homepage.

The organizers and Pretty Pictures photographer Matthias Carcasona already published photos of the last two days.

Achte Minute will give you daily updates on the points of the VDCH-teams and the break. So, watch this space, follow WUDC 2015 from wherever you are in the world and cross your fingers for the VDCH delegation 2015!

Teresa Widlok/ama