Almaty WUDC 2023

Astana Debate Association is excited to announce our bid to host the 2027 World Universities Debating Championship (WUDC) in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Almaty, a vibrant and rapidly growing city in the heart of Eurasia, is nestled at the foot of the stunning Alatau mountains, offering a unique blend of natural beauty and urban energy. Known as Kazakhstan's cultural and economic hub, Almaty is a diverse and cosmopolitan city with a rich history. As a city that values tradition and modernity, Almaty boasts numerous cultural landmarks, museums, parks, and recreational activities, providing an exceptional environment for debate and intellectual exchange. The city's central location in Central Asia makes it a unique and accessible destination for debaters from around the world.

Our efforts to make WUDC 2027 accessible and budget-friendly are backed by the unwavering support of key national and local entities, including "Kazakh Tourism" National Company JSC and the "Debat Eli" Public Fund.

Dear All,

We'd like to thank everyone for their support during this bidding process. In our engagement with delegates, we have received a tremendous amount of support and we are grateful for the help received. We thank everyone who voted for us and supported our bid. In particular, we'd like to highlight the work of all of our excellent advisors who have been invaluable, adj core and the convenors and orgcomm of the bid, who have done an amazing job.

We are exceptionally happy that an excellent bid, Madrid WUDC 2023, has succeeded in the bidding process. We have great respect for all members of the team and trust that they will do all they can to deliver the best WUDC possible. We wish them the best of luck in hosting WUDC and we hope that the entire community and our supporters unite around Madrid WUDC 2023 to help make it as successful as possible.

Moving forward, we look forward to the day that WUDC will be brought to Central Asia for the first time; not in 2023, but hopefully, sometime in the near future.

Best,
The Almaty WUDC team

We have listened. We believe firmly that action speaks louder than words, and that we must bring about an edition of Worlds that ensures genuine regional diversity.
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As such, we are firmly committed to ensuring that judges and IAs from underrepresented and underprivileged regions or communities are well represented at WUDC.
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In what we believe is a first for recent WUDCs, we would like to pledge a binding commitment to allocating a guaranteed MINIMUM amount of our total IA subsidy budget to IA applicants from the following regions:
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At LEAST 10% from Africa
At LEAST 10% from Latin America
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We recognise that, for some regions and communities, WUDC is particularly inaccessible. So teams and judges from such backgrounds, outside of the aforementioned regions, would also be considered and reviewed on grounds of representativeness of different circuit norms and the diverse demographics debating has on offer.
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We also recognise that whilst such subsidies can go some way in ameliorating inequalities across regions, they are by no means enough.
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This is why we have the largest ever scholarships budget of 20k USD, which will be allocated by a regionally diverse and independent committee, as an additional measure of ensuring that teams from disadvantanged backgrounds can access our edition of Worlds.
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Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you have any feedback or enquiries!

DEBATING IN KAZAKHSTAN
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After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan became an independent state in December 1991. Since then, there has been much development and further growth of different extracurricular student activities, including debating, which has been present for around two decades in our country. However, BP was introduced only less than 10 years ago, with the Debate Community of Astana advocating its further spread into the debating communities of Kazakhstan.
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In 2013, “Nomad” debate club of Nazarbayev University (NU) sent its members to the International Debate Academy in Slovenia, and half a year later Nomad’s leadership team hosted its own very first English language debate academy in Central Asia with invited international trainers - Nazarbayev University Debate Academy (NUDA) 2014. NUDA has grown to become one of the major debate events in Central Asia, with 30 participants in 2014 to 300+ in 2019 (in 2020 it was canceled due to the pandemic). Moreover, from 2017 onwards, 50% or more of the academy's training and CA team has been composed of Kazakhstani debaters, making NUDA a truly self-sustaining project that helped to foster local coaching capacity. Kazakhstan was first represented at WUDC in Chennai, India in 2014 and at EUDC in Zagreb, Croatia in 2014 by teams from KazGUU University debate club “Orda”.
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In 2015, along with KazGUU University, NU also sent its first team to Worlds in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and the team placed Kazakhstan on the WUDC map by breaking to the EFL semifinals. With this remarkable achievement, NU had a chance to send 2 teams and 1 adjudicator for WUDC in Thessaloniki, Greece 2016 and The Hague, Netherlands 2017, where teams from Kazakhstan showed competitive results. In Thessaloniki, Greece WUDC 2016, a member of NU debate club was also selected as the first independent adjudicator from Kazakhstan. In 2018, a team from NU made another historic achievement for the Kazakhstani debate community by breaking to the ESL quarterfinals at EUDC in Novi Sad, Serbia. The same year, Astana Debate Union won the right to host EUDC in Astana (now Nur-Sultan), Kazakhstan in 2020. A chance to host EUDC in Kazakhstan was a huge boost for the debating community here. Due to the pandemic, Astana EUDC was held online. However, 2020 was another notable year for the Kazakhstani debating as one of the NU teams finished as the 4th best open team in the preliminary rounds and made it to the ESL quarterfinals and Open semifinals. Moreover, both speakers made it to the top 10 ESL speakers and top 15 Open speakers. These so far stand as the best achievements of Kazakhstani debaters at EUDC.
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Even though Kazakhstan had only started to be represented on WUDC and EUDC from 2014 onwards, debaters from our country have demonstrated remarkable achievements over such a short period of time (represented at total of 5 WUDCs and 7 EUDCs only). The rapid progress of the debating community was perhaps best exemplified by the hosting by Astana Debate Union (ADU), founded by NU alumni, of Astana Open in 2017, which since then has become the largest ever tournament in English in Central Asia.
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This year, we hope to achieve another milestone by winning the right to host WUDC for the first time in Central Asia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. ADU’s organising team is composed of ambitious, hard-working, talented and motivated young people, who have taken a leading role in the development of the debating community in Kazakhstan and beyond. Their exceptional management skills, creativity, enterprise, determination and commitment have been instrumental in ensuring the success of a wide variety of massive events in Kazakhstan and Central Asia. The team is highly experienced in institutional cooperation and fundraising. They have been convening social and debating projects with IGOs and NGOs, private and public sector. Some partner organizations to list are FLEX, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, KPMG, SAP, UNDP, ADB and the American Council.
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Debating is more than just a competitive intellectual activity or extracurricular class for each and everyone of us. Debate communities have become knowledge powerhouses which nurture liberal ideas, human rights activism, growth of feminism and ecological awareness among others. Multiple movements and online channels were founded and various activist events were hosted by the alumni of debating communities in Kazakhstan. Debate clubs have also been the places where many LGBTQIA+ individuals can freely express their identities without societal judgement and prejudice. Debating has become a safe haven for those who are looking for like-minded peers and mentors, where people can truly be themselves and talk openly about many taboo or socially restricted topics, including mental health issues and sexual politics.
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We believe that bringing WUDC 2023 in Almaty, Kazakhstan will have an enormous positive impact on the debating society of the country and Central Asian region. We also believe that it will help to improve the lives of many individuals in Kazakhstan, where liberal education is still rather the exception as opposed to a norm, and democratic institutions are in severe need of a developmental boost. We hope to have you here with us in Kazakhstan - it’d be a true honour.

VISA ACCESSIBILITY UPDATE

Dear friends,

We are excited to share the latest news that the Kazakhstani government is pushing even further with visa access for tourists! It was recently announced that the Ministry of Sport and Culture is to increase the number of visa-exempt countries to 90 by the end of 2021 (read here: http://bit.ly/visa_ex_news). 102 countries are also on an e-visa agreement. Additionally, the recently piloted eQonaq web-service allows for easy registration of foreigners without any need to physically submit documents anywhere!

You can check this document - http://bit.ly/bid_comparison_2023 - to find all current visa-exempt and e-visa eligible countries.

Hello everyone,
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We’re very excited to announce our lineup for the workshops this upcoming week! As a quick note, we have changed the date of the workshop to February 26th in order to accommodate weekend tournaments.
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12-1 PM GMT: We will have two workshops where Amrit Agastia will talk about strategy in BP, while Connor O’Brien will talk about rebuttal.
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2-3 PM GMT: We will have two workshops where we have Brian Wong discussing adjudication and Ameera Natasha Moore discussing case construction and argument development.
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5-6 PM GMT: We will have two workshops where we have Jason Xiao discussing self-improvement and its relation to coaching and Harish Natarajan will talk about advanced argumentation.
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To register for a workshop please follow the link: http://bit.ly/almaty_workshop
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Almaty WUDC bid workshops event page: https://fb.me/e/1T5gC1hxA
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Best wishes,
The Proposed Almaty WUDC 2023 OrgComm and AdjCore

Dear All,

Thank you for attending today's WUDC Council. We appreciate all the questions you've asked.

Please, see attached our Bid Presentation for your reference.

The key takeaways from the Almaty WUDC 2023 presentation are:

💶 Almaty WUDC 2023 would offer the cheapest registration fee and the largest accessibility budget in recent times, massively improving accessibility to WUDC

📈Our budget is robust, delivering a surplus with sufficient buffer room under all forecasted scenarios - with conservative judge estimates and assumptions - while covering all foreseeable expenses

🏔Almaty is a beautiful, exotic location and Almaty WUDC has secured high-quality hotels and venues

🧙‍♀️We have an experienced org comm and adj core with a suite of accomplished advisors guiding us through the process of bidding for and hosting WUDC 2023, which will be especially important for navigating a COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 global debating landscape

🌏And most importantly, Almaty WUDC 2023 would be a historic victory for global debating access, bringing WUDC to Central Asia for the very first time!

We want to also thank our colleagues from the Madrid team for their hard work. We will be thrilled and humbled to be the hosts of WUDC 2023, the choice is yours!

Bid Presentation - Almaty WUDC 2023.pdf

BID ACCOUNTABILITY AND SUMMARY

For transparency purposes, we are releasing a copy of email that has been sent to all country representatives today.

Dear Country Reps,

On behalf of the Almaty WUDC 2023 bid, we would like to write to you to communicate the following - especially in light of the comments that we have received from the community and our friends at Madrid WUDC 2023.

We’d like to first sincerely apologize for our errors in calculating Madrid’s budget projections. As we have posted to clarify earlier (https://www.facebook.com/101900181692174/posts/192813309267527/), our initial estimations of the budget shortfall of the Madrid bid (when compared to the ratio of fee-paying institutional judges to teams of Thai Worlds and Cape Town) had an accounting error: we had not accounted for the corresponding reduction in expenses that would come with the correspondingly lower judge numbers in alternative scenarios. Upon being notified of our error, we have recalculated the forecasted budget shortfall of the Madrid bid, and it puts the figure at -14,418.76 Euros, which leaves the Madrid bid with a net surplus of 1300 Euros after incorporating their budget buffer. We did not and do not aim to make such comparisons in jest, but as a means to better inform the community. We apologise for our miscalculations, and the specific information that was disclosed on that basis. With regards to the discussions on plagiarism, we had wanted to bring this issue to the attention of delegates due to the potential risks of violating copyright law - but we appreciate that the consternation with which we did so could have been inappropriate.

As for our communications strategy, we sought to engage each delegation and representative as a means of reflecting their concerns in our bid preparation. Engaging individual delegates is an aspect that we value deeply, as we believe it is vital to do so in ensuring that the needs of contingents are addressed by our bid. Moving forward, our engagement with delegates will be with regards to answering queries and concerns and to confirming voting preferences. The preface to all of this, of course, is that we presume that both bids are operating under good faith here - at the end of the day, we are competing for the rights to host a tournament for the community, and the ultimate arbitrator should and must remain the community. There are three areas that we would like to bring draw to your attention:

1. Policy
2. Accessibility and Costs
3. Budgeting Estimations

First, on policies. As a bid, we have proposed a number of novel policies, including increased accessibility outreach, a system of tiered registration, and voluntary donation mechanisms to assist in getting teams to WUDC. We’ve worked extremely hard with members of the community from around the globe in crafting these policies by researching prior policy suggestions and engaging debaters from diverse backgrounds.

Secondly, on accessibility and costs. Almaty WUDC 2023 is firmly committed to allocating a significant portion of our budget to improving the accessibility to the tournament, but also of debating at large. Costs reduction and streamlining is a vital means of ensuring that tournaments are well-equipped to handle and mitigate against contingencies, thereby shoring up more capital for teams and societies to draw from in order to participate in this wonderful annual debating event of ours. Central Asia is a rapidly growing and developing circuit that we would truly appreciate the opportunity to bring debating to - and we believe that with our $20,000 budget for our scholarship programmes, tiered registration schemes, and commitment to bringing in members of the debating community in our preparation for WUDC, we can indeed fulfil the objectives set out as such.

Our registration fee is significantly cheaper than Madrid’s (a difference of 162 Euros/195.40 USD), and whilst we have noted that Madrid is one of the cheapest cities to live in Europe, the cost of living there is still 300% more than the cost in Almaty according to Numbeo - a crowdsourced global online database of consumer prices. The Madrid bid has suggested that the patterns of consumption are different at debate tournaments with debaters eating from non-takeaway options like convenience and whilst we think this is plausible, this is not the case for a significant number of participants and varies based on the accessibility and quality of meals at convenience stores in a country. It is certainly not the case that this should negate the stark difference noted above and the invariably significant increase in costs involved should participants wish to consume other food.

If participants would like to eat elsewhere, our calculations are specifically on the least expensive restaurant option provided by Numbeo. This comparative may sound trivial, but is of utmost importance for the thousands of participants who rock up to Worlds not only for a chance at breaking, but also for its social experience. We appreciate that Madrid noted the potential problems with our calculations concerning museums and taxis; however, restaurants and alcohol comprise the majority of the difference at 125 USD. Finally, Madrid is correct that people have different consumption patterns; with that in mind, we estimated conservatively and did not include other common consumer products that would also have a price difference.

Almaty is listed among top 5 cheapest cities in the world according to the Worldwide Cost of Living survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit in 2020 (the survey includes 133 cities compared for local prices for 167 products and services), Madrid is included in the survey as well.

A one-way ticket on public transport is around 0.18 EUR, while a monthly unlimited pass is 14.30 EUR. As we mentioned before, the Novotel and Kazakhstan hotels are located in 3-4 minutes of walk from the venue. Hotel Almaty is a 20 minutes walk (2 km) and free buses to the venue and back will be provided for participants staying there during tournament days. Free transportation is also provided for participants on the days of arrival and departure from the airport to the hotels. Most of the sightseeings are placed in the city center, where the venue and hotels are located as well, therefore, we expect personal transport costs to be minimal. We doubt that most of the participants will be using public transportation as taxi and car pooling services are very cheap as well (max 4 EUR/10 km for a car of 4 people). Public transportation and all tournament-provided transportation in Almaty have heating.

With respect to flights, if hosted in Almaty, WUDC will have much more attendees from the Commonwealth of Independent States, Central Asia and possibly East Asia due to close proximity. There are currently only a total of 4 cities mentioned in the comparative list (Nur-Sultan, Moscow, St.Petersburg and Kiev). If we extend the number of cities to 19 (there are currently 19 cities from Europe in the list, which are in close proximation to Spain), the average cost of flights will decrease significantly.

Finally, on the budget. We are of the opinion that WUDC 2023 is likely to operate under much uncertainty and almost certainly lower participation in general due to the global COVID situation and potential proximity to Belgrade WUDC as mitigation measures may not ensure full participation. This is especially the case as financial burdens from the pandemic will make affording registration and travel more difficult.

We have designed our budget to withstand those uncertainties and can break even with as few as 175 judges who pay registration fees, and we also welcome the scrutiny of our budget and estimates by everyone in the community (Link to our budget: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xArlUjVdcfYVFzrcsR7c13KeOBVfQs2iT_kByG2qW6g/edit?usp=drivesdk). Looking at Berlin WUDC 2013’s numbers based on their tab, they had 332 judges for 385 teams. If we assumed that about 80 were IAs and 8 were CAs/equity, numbers which are equal to the most conservative estimates in the two budgets for IAs, the ratio would be 244 fee-paying judges to 385 teams - an equivalent of 253 judges to 400 teams.

We also have concerns that such revenue decreases may not be met with corresponding decreases in expenses. Page 11 of the OrgComm Final Report for Thessaloniki WUDC 2016 indicates that expenses matched the projected budget, but registration fee payment was lower than projected by 11,000 Euros. A reduction in income without a reduction in expenditure possibly may reflect that contracts or fixed expenses need to be paid early despite not having actually reached the projected number of participants; similarly, page 8 of the Dutch WUDC 2017 Final Report emphasized the importance of planning for conservative participant numbers to avoid a situation where more participants need to attend to cover prior expenses, as happened at Dutch.

To close off, we are all folks who care deeply for the debating community. We have friends who have been supporters and are members of the Madrid WUDC bid - and we’d like to think that such friendships are reciprocated, shared, and could withstand the tests of the bidding process. Going forward, we welcome any and all feedback, critique, and comments on our work. Thank you for reading this.

Almaty WUDC budget Admin Costs 1 usd,1 euro ₸423,₸514 Price,Instances,Days,Tenge Total,USD Total,EURO Total Streaming,$2,000,€1,646 ₸14,000,4,6,₸336,000,$794,€654,laptops rent ₸20,000,4,6,₸480,000,$1,135,€934,cameras and related facilities ₸30,000,$71,€58,buffer for streaming 400 teams,352 teams,...

Dear debating community,
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In the lead-up to the bid vote on WUDC 2023, we have been in contact with country representatives to articulate the comparative merits of our bid. In the process of making this case, we examined Madrid’s budget under different institutional judge turnout scenarios, looking at the relative ratio of fee-paying judges to teams. We have now been informed of an accounting error. The Madrid budget estimates 170 more fee-paying judges than the Almaty budget under the 400 team estimate using our projected fee-paying judge-to-team ratio. We originally argued that the Madrid estimates were overly optimistic and that, if the Madrid institutional judge estimates were similar to the Almaty institutional judge estimates, then it would lead to a revenue shortfall of 88,400 Euros. Madrid was using projections from WUDC 2016 and 2017, two European-hosted Worlds which had a higher judge-to-team ratio. We based our calculations on the ratio of fee-paying judges to teams from the two most recent editions of WUDC: Cape Town and Thailand. However, we overlooked the corresponding reduction in expenses of 73,981.24 Euros, which would reduce the forecasted budget shortfall to 14,418.76 Euros and leave Madrid with a net surplus of 1,300 Euros. We apologize for this error. We still believe that these projections and potential budget shortfall are concerns that the debate community should be cognizant of in the lead up to the vote. We welcome everyone to scrutinize our budget and bid as well in the interest of transparency, accountability, and ensuring that the bids are as best as they can be.
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Attached are all of the calculations that we have been using regarding price differences: http://bit.ly/bids_comparison. This includes a comparison on cost-of-living, the registration fee, and the budget shortfall from the estimated judge shortfall.
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Best, The Almaty WUDC 2023 Adj Core and Org Comm

TRANSPARENCY AND INTEGRITY
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1. We believe firmly that any Adjudication Core member should be held to account for their actions and be first and foremost accountable to the debating community at large.
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2. We, as an Adjudication Core, are committed to remaining both transparent and conscientious of integrity- and privacy-related concerns, especially when it comes to handling sensitive information or making decisions where only limited direct external oversight is possible.
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3. More specifically, we welcome the steps taken by the Monash Australs 2020 adjudication core to improve transparency levels in adjudication core decision-making, which included outlining standing orders that defined when and for what reason the adjudication core could alter the algorithmically-generated Tabbycat judge allocations. This is not to say that we intend on adopting the exact (or even similar) measures used during Monash Australs 2020, but rather that we support the precedent of openly declaring the rules and regulations that define acceptable conduct by the adjudication core. A link to the Monash Australs 2020 standing orders document is provided below:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/19I4Obw9GqUjUM7ZzqKWtS1No_hlBS-Grq_SrZ_7irIE/edit?fbclid=IwAR0M4PXNo1nVX5njShM2NWlB-FxxnHTm8J4pyESdqnXkxOlhzJ1wm0nuv1M
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4. As a general policy direction, we hope to incorporate and include more of the debating community - in the form of advisory panels and task forces - in formulating policies on important issues such as transparency. WUDC should not be a tournament run by the few, for the few; it should be a tournament for the many, run by the many.

SOCIALS
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Dear All,
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We recognise socials are essential part of every debating competition, hence, we are happy to introduce tentative venues for the Almaty WUDC 2023.
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🔶 For opening and closing ceremonies - Almaty Hall - a banqueting hall with various options of food and drinks available.
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Its a new exquisite premium class hall with classic interior. The glass hall on the ground floor, where the orchestral and buffet areas are located, has the walls decorated with bas-relief mosaics. Spacious, light and cozy, the hall is suitable for events of any scale. This establishment in the very city center has not lost its relevance for 55 years!
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🔶 For Break Night and New Year's Eve - Gerey Khan Hall, where you will immerse in the taste of Central Asia.
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The majestic and inimitable Gerey Khan Hall will procide any event with the effect of grandeur and create a unique holiday atmosphere. The hall will also be equipped with lighting devices and sound equipment, as well as a stage transformed into a podium for performances of artists and shows.
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🔶 For free day socials on January 1st - Blablabar the BIGGEST bar space in Kazakhstan. The bar area is 3 floors and more than 2000 sq.m, more than enough for hype and fun. Moreover it has 22 bars - each with its own unique atmosphere; 3 gastro bars - with amazing cuisine and a unique menu, and karaoke - for the loudest voices.
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We will ensure that our socials are inclusive in terms of dietary preferences for catering and providing space for those who do not drink alcohol such as non-alcohol tables.
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Let's party together? 🥳