CU International Debate Fest 2021
The central debating organisation of University of Chittagong, Chittagong University Debating Society (CUDS) hosted an International Debate Tournament named as "CU International Debate Fest 2021" for the first time in the history as the flagship event of CUDS. The theme for this year's debate fest was "Change is Inevitable".
The tournament took place on Discord and Zoom server. About 44 teams and 88 debaters participated in the debate fest around the world. Debaters took part in 4 preliminary rounds on 17th April, the first day of debate fest.
On the next day, two finals were held before the closing ceremony, novice and high school finals for team who are new in debating and from the top school teams of the tournament, and the open finals for all the teams of the event.
The institutions that competed in the novice and high school finals were University of Chittagong, Chittagong Cantonment Public High School and two independent high school teams. The championship went to University of Chittagong consisting of Anika Tahsin and Ahmed Tanjim. And the best speaker of final was Anika Tahsin.
As for the open finals, the institutions that competed in the finals were London School of Economics, University of Chittagong, Royalty Pact and an independent team named Question Mark.
The main trophy of the tournament went to London School of Economics, featuring Abhijitt Supramaniam and Joshua Paren Paul. The best speaker of the open final, novice category and the best speaker of the tournament was Joshua Paren Paul.
The vice-chancellor of University of Chittagong Professor Dr. Shireen Akhter Chowdhury was the chief guest in the closing ceremony of CU International Debate fest 2021.The moderator of Chittagong University Debating Society and Dean of faculty of Law Professor ABM Abu Noman was present in the closing ceremony.
The VC, Chief Patron of Chittagong University Debating Society, Professor Dr. Shireen Akhter Chowdhury thanked all the participants and judges who took part in the debate fest and made it a success. She also said, "The best thing about any international event is it accumulates all the people who are from different cultures, region and race so beautifully that the barriers between people and their minds get vanished. We are very proud to have a scope to host such an event in this chaotic situation of COVID-19." She also encouraged the young minds to get involve in debating more and more.
Next our honourable moderator Professor ABM Abu Noman said, "It's a challenge to host an International tournament in a pandemic. But Chittagong University Debating Society (CUDS) has done wonders overcoming all problems like the pandemic, different time zone, technical problem and everything. I would like to thank all the debaters, judges and organising committee of CUDS for having such a good run. "
The event came to an end with the prize giving ceremony. The winner of open finals was given 120 USD as prize money. And the winner of the novice and high school final were given 80 USD as prize money.
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