The 2011 World Schools Debate Academy held in lovely Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, amidst the Julian Alps, concluded on Friday 8 July with the end of the tournament. The program had over 130 participants from 19 nations, including Macedonia, Italy, Sweden,Czech Republic, Ireland, Serbia,Montenegro, Bosnia, Croatia, Germany, Qatar, Venezuela, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia, the USA, Italy, Hong Kong and the UK.

In the finals, it was a 4-3 decision for proposition team Qatar 1 over opposition Team Germany. It was judged to be an excellent debate on a very difficult motion, that a conscious consumer does more for democracy than a voter. 

In the semifinals, Qatar 1 defeated Beatles (Germany) and Team Germany defeated Slovenia A. In the quarterfinals, it was Team Germany defeating Slokong (Slovenia & Hong Kong), Qatar 1 defeating Over 9000 (Slovenia), Beatles defeating Qatar 2, and Slovenia A defeating Slovenia B.

The top ten speakers were:

1, Asfiya Manam (Qatar 2) 

2, Safa Kashaf (Qatar 1)

3, Felix Jiang (Germany)

4, Kai Ohmstedt (Germany)

5, Jernej Fink (Slo B)

6, Domen Prešeren (Slo A)

7, Shaheema Faizeen (Qatar 2)

8, Dilek Sevinc (Beatles)

9, Mojca Juteršek (Slo A)

10, Nena Lejko (Slo B) 

The full tab can be found at http://debate.uvm.edu/dcpdf/wsda2011tab.pdf 

Motions for the tournament were:

1.   Voting should be obligatory.

2.   Require large online social networks to be controlled democratically by their users.

3.   The exploration and development of outer space should be done by an international organization.

4.   We support parents who secretly install spyware on their children’s electronic devices.

5.   There would be no Arabic spring without the Internet.

Quarterfinals: Children should be excluded from any religion until adulthood

Semifinals: Representative democracy has failed us.

Finals: A conscious consumer does for democracy more than a voter.

The tournament and the entire academy were declared a success. Maximum respect for director Bojana Skrt and hosts ZIP Slovenia and World Debate Institute USA.

More information (picture album coming) is at http://debateacademy.net/Debate_Academy/WSDA_Slovenia.html 

Join us next year for another exciting program!