Dhaka, May 14 (bdnews24.com)—The Asian Universities Debating Championship (AUDC), participated by teams from 10 countries, kicked off Thursday at the city's Sonargaon Hotel.
AUDC, the largest non-sporting event in Asia hosted by East West University, is set to see 69 teams competing.
Speaker Abdul Hamid inaugurated the week-long tournament.
"The youth has to play the lead role to face the challenges of the 21st century," the speaker told the participants.
Being the first AUDC in the south Asia, this would boost the confidence of all educational institutes in Bangladesh to achieve bigger goals in future, he said.
"I believe this initiative will set an example of healthy exchange of ideas and peaceful persuasion."
University Grants Commission (UGC) chairman professor Nazrul Islam, the special guest, said the necessity of debate or dialogue for the growth of individual as well as countries could be hardly overemphasised.
"Debate is a way of not only broadening perspectives but also disseminating what we collectively produce."
He said that the UGC is going to organise a SAARC regional debate championship early next year.
The inaugural session also heard from AUDC executive committee chair Estell Osorio, EWU board of directors president Jalaluddin Ahmed and vice chancellor Mohammad Sharif.
AUDC is the largest debating assembly after the World Universities Debating Championship.
The Philippines hosted the first AUDC tournament in 2005, and the last edition was held in Malaysia in 2008.
As many as 267 participants from Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and the Philippines are attending this year's edition.
Nine teams from the Institute of Business Administration of Dhaka University, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology and North South University are in the fray.
The preliminary round of the two-phase competition will be held on May 15-17 at the Oxford International School. The top 16 teams will qualify for the knockout round at the Sonargaon Hotel on May 18-19.
Radio Foorti, New Age and bdnews24.com are the media partners of the tournament.
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