A team of four CAIS students represented Australia and the ANU at the Third International Universities Arabic Debating Championship held in Doha, Qatar from 26 to 29 April 2015. The team was compromised of: Yara Hussien, Thomas Randall, Derek Bayley and Andrew Findell-Aghnatios, and was led by CAIS PhD scholar Adel Abdel Ghafar.

Supported by Qatar Foundation, the 4-day biannual event seeks to unlock human potential by fostering a culture of discussion and debate, helping shape the global citizens of the future and creating the intellectual leaders of tomorrow. This was the second time for ANU students to participate after competing in the event in 2013. This championship saw a huge increase in the number of participants, with 67 teams representing 33 countries competing, which included teams from non-Arab speaking universities from Australia, India, Pakistan, Brunei, Malaysia, France, United States, Poland, China, Republic of Korea, Kazakhstan, and Germany.

Despite the challenges of debating with native speakers of Arabic, the ANU team performed very strongly and was commended by both other teams and the organizers of the event. The ANU team appeared on Qatari TV and made it into the local newspapers. Their performance included a deserved win against a team of native Arabic speakers from the American University of the Emirates, which involved debating internet censorship and democratization. “I am very proud of the team’s performance.” Mr Abdel Ghafar said, “their performance is a reflection on both the student’s debating skills and the world-class quality of the Arabic program at CAIS.”