Debating to open new doors of opportunities

It was a day for team Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB)-A, consisting of debaters Nazifa Raidah and Zobayer Ahmed . They sweeped the floor at Flamingo Drishty Game of Logic 2019 in Chattogram. The champions IUB-A team defeated teams of North South University (NSU), Dhaka University (DU) and Chittagong University (CU) in the grand finale of the inter-university debating tournament.
Drishty Chittagong is a non-profit organisation that is known for arranging successful Bangla debating tournaments and thus bringing the brightest minds of the country together under one roof. They held their very first English debating tournament called Game of Logic on February 01 to 02, 2019. The debate followed the British Parliamentary debating format which had four teams, each consisting of two members. The venue for this tournament was Bangladesh Elementary School, Dampara, Chattogram. Competition was fierce as the students debating in the tournament were from universities all over Bangladesh. All the participating institutions sent their best debaters to battle it out for the championship title.
The first four preliminary rounds took place on February 01, and the semi-finals and finals took place the next day. The teams that made it to the semi-finals were IUB-A, IUB-B, NSU-A, DU-A, Khulna University of Engineering and Technology (KUET)-1, Chittagong University Finance Business and Debating Association (CUFBDA)-A, Chittagong University School of Debate (CUSD)-B and Chittagong Medical College Debating Club (CMCDC)-Immunity.
Challenging motions were handpicked for each round of the tournament to push the debaters to their limits. They touched on such topics as the rising trend in developing nations of sporting personalities running for public office, the norm or idea of romantic love being the primary source of fulfilment in a person's life, the choice of concealing the identity of the new vigilante that has been hunting down alleged rapists in Bangladesh, the preference of a unified national school curriculum over a system containing various educational systems, and the need for unfiltered information on Internet in times of crisis. The motion for the final debate was regarding the choice of seeking cryogenic sleep from the perspective of a middle-aged person ('cryogenic sleep' is a science fiction concept of long term hibernation of human bodies through very low temperature which can be theoretically beneficial for space travel). The four teams that made it to final round fought with great vigour, and team IUB A emerged as the victor and took the trophy home.
The two champion debaters, Zobayer Ahmed and Nazifa Raidah, had made it to the list of the top 10 speakers of the competition with two other diligent debaters from the IUB Debate Club, Sreyan Kanungo and Noshin Saiyara, who made it to the semi-finals of the competition as team IUB-B.
Nazifa Raidah, who is in her first semester at IUB, has made her mark by winning a championship on her debut tournament for IUB Debating Club. Zobayer Ahmed, who had garnered accolades in the past such as winning the United Asian Debating Championship 2018, was annuonced best speaker of the finals of Flamingo Drishty Game of Logic 2019.
Zobayer Ahmed is currently preparing for one of the most competitive international debating tournaments in the world, Hobart William Smith Round Robin, which will be held in New York on April 06, 2019. There he will be debating against teams from institutions such as Harvard University and Stanford University. This is an exclusive debating tournament where only the most competent debaters are invited to participate; IUBDC will be sending its three best debaters -- Zobayer Ahmed, Nabil Hasan and Aaqib Farhan Hossain to represent Bangladesh.
Tournaments like Drishty Game of Logic, and Ascension, an international debating tournament hosted annually by IUB, play a significant role in preparing these debaters for such prominent tournaments and open new doors not only for themselves but also for the aspiring debaters of the country.

The writer is a student of Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB).
She can be reached at [email protected]