On April 7th and April 8th the Higher School of Economics hosted their annual international tournament in British Parliamentary Style. Chief Adjudicated by Filip Dobranic, along with Mathias Hamann and Eugene Akulich, HSE Open 2012 combined the fun of debating, with plenty of workshops and an insight into Proctor & Gamble’s recruitment philosophy. Christoph and Rosie competed as “Debattierklub Wien” and just missed the break, placing 9th of the tab.
Travel guides tend to describe the people that inhabit Moscow as distant folks that rarely laugh. Should you get a hand on one of such guides, please do me the favour and flush them down the toilet. Most certainly, when you plan to debate in Moscow. You will find Russian debaters perfectly accommodating, curious and warm hearted people. Nothing, but the weather will make for a cold encounter.
Free for international participants
HSE does a fabulous job in providing a visa that allows you to stay in this small country called Russia for a month. This in itself is already valuable, since it spares you the procedure of requesting an invitation to apply for the visa – plus, this type of visa falls under the category “student purpose” and comes in free.
This year HSE was particularly generous in waiving all fees for it’s international participants. The waiver included three nights at the student dorms, as well as for snacks and meals at the social. HSE runs a smooth schedule starting the first round on Saturday somewhat between 1 and 2 pm. Excellent gastronomic choices at the Schesh Besh which, as the name implies serves Middle Eastern Food.
Filip certainly worked hard for his meals, CA of the tournament, he gave workshops on Friday, Monday and Tuesday evenings and adjudicated two HSE-internal Belgrade EUDC tryout-rounds.
Job-seekers, watch out!
In addition the tournament made room to present its sponsor Procter & Gamble. The warm introduction into their international recruitment philosophy clearly catered to skills held by debaters. Job-seekers, watch out!
This teeny tiny gap
As for the break, we missed it by that teeny tiny gap in speaker points. Andrey Aver’yanov and Timofei Petukhov won the entertaining final on the motion In the case where a space exploration effort locate an inhabitable planet, THBT the settlers of this planet should construct a society without private property from second proposition. They defeated Yuriy Gaevskiy and Zhanna Britvina speaking from first government, Nikolay Gryzunov and Anastasia Kravtsova speaking from first opposition and Alexander Rabinovich and Dmitriy Ustinov speaking from closing government.
Congrats to Anna Dotsenko for topping the tab on 385 speaker points followed by her team partner Yulia Makhalova with 384 points after five rounds.
The motions of the HSE Open 2012
Saturday, April 7
Round 1. THBT all teachers should openly declare their sexual orientation to their pupils.
Round 2. THW set legally binding physical parameters for fashion models
Round 3. THW treat all cyber attacs as act of war
Sunday April 8
Round 4. THW legalize all drugs
Round 5. THW not use public money for life extending medical care for people over a certain age
Semi Final
THBT change comes through a molotov cocktail and not through a voting ballot
Final.
In the case where a space exploration effort locate an inhabitable planet, THBT the settlers of this planet should construct a society without private property.
