4-6 December 2015 – Up to 70 teams from across the nation debated their way through five gruelling preliminary rounds at the Kopitiam Ekonomi (KE) Debate Challenge 2015 at IMU’s campus in Bukit Jalil. From these five rounds, only 16 teams made it to the Elimination round. 
Intense battles were seen during the quarters and semis, leading up to the Grand Finals, where the best four teams will face each other for the champion’s cash prize of RM5,000. Team Cambridge Mara Sdn Bhd comprising of Jainah Jaafar and Lucas Li claimed the grand prize in a debate on “This house believes that Malaysia’s decision to ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) should be put to a public referendum.” Lucas Li was also the Overall Best Speaker. The KE Debate Challenge 2015, is organised by the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (PEMANDU), partnered by IMU (led by the IMU Debating Club) in collaboration with the Malaysian Institute for Debate and Public Speaking (MIDP). 
In his speech, IMU President, YBhg Tan Sri Dato’ Dr Abu Bakar Suleiman said, “I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all of you for your active participation and sharing intriguing views and opinions through this platform. Such platforms provides great opportunities to foster new friendships and networks from diverse backgrounds, to share and gain multi-faceted knowledge, ideas, and experiences and polish skills beyond the academic settings.” 
“PEMANDU has over the course of the last three years been involved in organising debating challenges at a varsity level. We feel that this grounds a good foundation towards the country’s movement of moderates,” PEMANDU Director of Communications Alex Iskandar Liew said. “Individuals develop awareness, clear understanding and a firm conviction in what can be logically proven. What better way than to nurture a learned society in a structured environment as such. We are looking to adopt the KE Debate Challenge concept to a national school level competition in dual languages in 2016,” he added. 
President of IMU Debating Society, Arjun Gopal A/L Subramaniam, said ” I am very happy that IMU has taken this opportunity to collaborate with PEMANDU and MIDP. The tournament comprised of many top Asian debaters, including the recent champions of the Cambridge IV Debating Tournament (Mifzal Mohammed, Jasmine Ho) and Asia’s best speaker (Syed Saddiq). As a judge and one of the members of the Adjudication Core, I was impressed at the level of complexity the arguments on economic principals were developed. Hosting this event is a great step forward for our university and IMU Debating Society.” 
In 2016, IMU has been appointed to organise the HEP-IPTS Debate 2016. Stay tuned for more. Click here to view more photos of this event.
