IDEA Karl Popper Debate Championship (KPDC)

The Chief Adjudicator will be Andrej Schulcz.

The KPDC lasts from July 24th – 27th, 2009. It is possible to attend the tournament separately from the other parts of the Youth Forum. Any 3-member debate team is eligible, whose members are or have been high school students in the last 6 months prior to the Forum. If you cannot find a complete 3-member team, but you would still like to participate, please contact the Forum Coordinator as soon as possible. It is possible to pair incomplete teams together to form an international team competing in the KPDC.

If you want to read more about the Karl Popper Debate Format, please visit the IDEA main website - section about the formats.

This tournament will feature 2 prepared topic and 4 limited-time preparation debate topics (announced at the Forum, 30 minutes prior to the round) in the area of Energy.

Extended preparation time topics:

• This house believes that, when in conflict, global climate change concerns should take precedence over economic development, in rapidly developing countries such as China, India, Brazil, and South Africa.
• To combat climate change, nations should use cap and trade regulations rather than impose taxes on carbon emissions

Round I – prepared topic I
Round II – prepared topic I
Round III – limited-time prep
Round IV – limited-time prep
Round V – prepared topic II
Round VI - prepared topic II
Octofinals – limited time prep
Quarterfinals – prepared topic I
Semifinals - limited time prep
Finals – prepared topic II

The Bulgarians welcomed us with bagpipes and traditional costumes at the opening ceremony of the Youth Forum 2008!

Check out the pictures from from the Championship 2008 and the magnificent Plovdiv, where we held the last years KPDC finals!

Andrej Schulcz started debating while in high school in 2003. Shortly afterwards, he became a coach and judge. In 2006, he was appointed Chief Adjudicator of the Slovak Debate Association. Since then he has trained debaters, judges, coaches and teachers on several occasions. He has also written or edited several articles and handbooks on debate and argumentation. He was on the local staff of the 2007 Youth Forum and a trainer at the 2008 Youth Forum. He studies political science and sociology at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic.