Sharmila Parmanand is currently doing her Phd studies at Cambridge University. As a trainer, Sharmila has taught debate in over 25 countries. She coached the Philippine team that reached the World Schools Debate Championship semis in 2012 and has coached Team Palestine for the last two years. Sharmila has judged the grand final at the 2016 WSDA in Slovenia and the World Schools division of the US High School National Championship in 2014. She was also co-CA of Berlin World Universities Debate Championship and 2011 Asian BP Championship and DCA for the 2010 and 2011 Austral-Asian Championships, 2014 North American Debate Championship, and 2010 United Asian Debating Championship. She has judged the World Universities open grand final twice and open semifinal thrice. As a speaker, Sharmila spoke at an Australs Grand Final and WUDC open octo and won the Asian Championship twice in a row.
Claire Ryan is a District Court Judge in her home town of Auckland New Zealand where she presides over criminal trials, an amateur astronomer with an interest in teaching others to recognise constellations and a very amateur watchmaker with a passion for collecting Swatches. She has been involved in the World Schools Debating Championships since 1988 and has been attending WSDC regularly since 2002. She was on the Chief Adjudication Panel from 2004 to 2008 and the co-Chief Adjudicator in 2007. She last adjudicated at WSDC 2015 in Singapore and 2016 in Stuttgart Germany. Claire first attended a debating championship in Ljutomer in 2010 and fell in love with the beauty of Slovenia and the kindness of its people. She tries to visit as often as work commitments will permit her.
Bojana Skrt is a director of Slovenian national debate organisation Za in proti, zavod za kulturo dialoga/Pro et contra, Institute for culture of dialogue, professionally involved in national and international debate for the last 20 years. As a trainer she trained teachers, coaches, judges and debaters in more than 20 countries all over the world, including China, Iraq and USA. She has served as a coach for national slovenian debate team representing Slovenia at Worlds Schools Debating Championships for almost two decades with a lot of success – Slovenian team often breaking in the octofinals and even quarterfinals, winning the best or second best English Foreign Language Team award several times. She is a founder and a director of IDAS – International Debate Academy Slovenia and WSDA – Worlds Schools Debate Academy, the weekly long intense international debate training for debaters, coaches and teachers. She was involved as a member of CA pannel in more than 200 tournaments in Slovenia and internationally.
TAB MASTER
Aljoša Polšak is one of the most experienced highly qualified tab masters in Europe. He has been tabbing numerous tournaments in Slovenia. Because of the quality of his work, high professionalism and expertise he keeps being invited to tab international highschool tournaments, including Heart of Europe, WHO, ARGO ... in other countries as well. He will serve as a tab master for WSDC 2018.
