This holiday season, WTIA inaugurated a new, rather untraditional holiday event: Debates & Drinks. On December 3, over one hundred WTIA staff and community members gathered at Northeastern University, in South Lake Union, to celebrate the season, have a bit of fun, and enjoy the spirit of debate.
The topics of our tipsy disputes were some of the more prevalent Washington state tech industry stereotypes—like bringing your dog to work, being all about the perks, and noshing on all things organic. After three fierce rounds, the audience crowned Ben Golden the champion. When not debating the finer things in tech, Golden is the Director of Legal Affairs at TUNE, one of Seattle’s fastest growing startups, and a long time WTIA supporter.
Other competitors for the Debates & Drinks crown included:
Naria Santa Lucia, Executive Director of WSOS Ben Golden, director of legal affairs at TUNE Rep. Chad Magendanz Dave Parker, CEO of CodeFellows Dave Cotter, co-founder of SquareHub Ruby Love, Chief Impact Officer at VentureScale Neil Halpern, VP of Technology at Base2 Solutions and Matthew Sanders, a public defender for King County.
Michael Souders, the Director of UW’s Debate Union, coached the debaters beforehand and served as the referee. Perhaps to the chagrin of some of our guests, we’ve got photo evidence of the shenanigans that ensued. To see all of the pictures of this year’s event, go to the WTIA Facebook page!
Guests were greeted by student volunteers from UW’s Debate Union, UW’s AISEC, and Northeastern University.
WTIA’s CEO Michael Shutzler stood next to the the newly released Seattle Tech Universe Map, which features more than 600 companies.
Nearly 100 guests crowded Northeastern University – Seattle. Wistar Star (left), Mary Trimarco (center) and Amrita Srivastava (right).
Inside the green room, the debaters get warmed up. Ruby Love, Chief Impact Office of Venture Scale (left) and Naria Santa Lucia, the Executive Director of WSOS (right).
The debate team before the tournament starts–they’re still smiling. Top row (from left to right): Dave Parker (debater); Michael Souders (debate coach and facilitator); Michael Schutzler (host); Ruby Love (debater), Neil Halpern (debater), Dave Cotter (debater). Front row (from left to right): Rep. Chad Magendanz (debater), Naria Santa Lucia (debater), Matthew Sanders (debater), Ben Golden (debater).
The debates kick off with Neil Halpern (left) and Dave Cotter (right) debating “People should drive Teslas because Teslas are good for the environment.”
Matthew Sanders (left) and Ruby Love (right) debate the merits of following Facebook’s lead and stocking whiskey in the bathroom.
The audience decides who will advance by text voting.
Dave Parker (left) and Ben Golden (right) face off on “Tech companies should source all office snacks from local, organic farmers.”
The votes come in for Parker and Golden and there is a clear winner.
In the debate on “Tech companies should allow subsidize pet sitting service for their employees to ensure equity among parents of all kinds of creatures,” Naria Santa Lucia (left) argues that tech companies should subsidize pet sitting and Rep. Chad Magandenz (right) turns around the argument by telling us sitting on pets is cruel.
A team of student volunteers tweet fiercely through the evening, especially as we advanced to the semifinals and finals. This time, the debaters call for topics from the audience. The selected topics for the semifinals included “Seattle freeze is a myth made up by disgruntled outsiders” and “Seattle should ban people here from Silicon Valley.”
Matthew Sanders wishes Ruby Love luck in her debate against Dave Cotter in the semifinals. Ben Golden debates against Rep. Chad Magendanz in the semifinals.
Volunteer time keepers were critical to keeping the debate moving. The debate format included a minute-long opening statement from the pro and con, then three minutes of unstructured debate, and then 30-second closing statements from each side.
Ruby Love and Ben Golden face off for the finals, this time, with wine glasses in hand. Dave Cotter had won the semifinals against Ruby but he had to leave at 8:30pm to pick up his daughters.
Ben Golden was crowned championing in a fierce debate on “All babies in Washington state should be given Microsoft Surfaces at birth.”
Thanks to everyone who attended and participated in our evening of Debates & Drinks. We wish you and yours a wonderful holiday season and a very happy 2016!
Julie Pham is the Vice President of Community Engagement and Marketing at WTIA, where she helps fulfill Washington’s potential to become home to the world’s greatest tech industry.
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