Project summary

Project Summary

The Good Debate is a talent development, fieldbuilding and media initiative that uses debate as a tool to engage leading minds with some of the world's most pressing problems, starting with AI safety in Africa and expanding globally.

We deliberately designed the format to combine live-audience debate with full media production, creating impact beyond the debaters themselves.

Participants receive structured exposure to the topic before debating. For example, in the AI Safety Series, debaters complete introductory AI safety material beforehand, and both debaters and the live audience receive an in-person or virtual presentation from an expert on AGI and AI safety before the debate begins. This ensures that the debate starts from a shared foundation of knowledge, allowing participants and audiences to engage meaningfully with complex questions rather than encountering them without context.

Each debate is then transformed into long-form video, individual speeches and short-form digital content, allowing the ideas and arguments to reach much wider audiences online.

Beyond the event itself, participants who demonstrate interest are connected to opportunities for deeper engagement, including further learning, networks, fellowships, conferences and career pathways. The debate becomes an entry point rather than an endpoint.

What are this project's goals? How will you achieve them?

There are three interconnected goals we aim to achieve:

1. Develop Talent

We identify exceptional debaters and expose them to AI safety and other high-impact global challenges through structured learning, expert engagement and competitive debate. Participants complete introductory material beforehand—for example, BlueDot’s The Future of AI course—and then join the live audience for an expert presentation on the debate topic. The motion is revealed afterwards, giving debaters 20 minutes to prepare before debating in front of the live audience.

The format is deliberately interactive: audience members can challenge debaters through timed Points of Information (POI’s), and at the end of the debate, the audience votes on which side was more successful in changing their minds. This develops participants’ ability to rapidly understand, interrogate and communicate complex ideas while exposing both debaters and audiences to substantive arguments from multiple perspectives.

2. Build the Field

We want to create an accessible entry point into AI safety for talented people who may not otherwise encounter the field, beginning with established debate networks across Africa. We create pathways from initial exposure to deeper engagement by connecting interested participants to further learning, fellowships, conferences, networks and career opportunities. We then follow participants after the programme to track continued learning, applications, connections and career exploration.

3. Expand Public Engagement Through Media

We design each debate for an audience far beyond those physically present. Events are professionally recorded and repurposed into full-length debates, individual speeches and short-form digital content distributed across major online platforms—carrying engagement beyond the room and introducing wider audiences to AI safety and other high-impact global challenges.

Together, we hope that these activities create a pathway from exposure → learning → debate → public engagement → deeper involvement, allowing The Good Debate to simultaneously discover and develop talent, strengthen the field and bring important ideas into wider public conversation.

How will this funding be used?

Funding will cover:

• Venue and catering for live audiences;

• Professional audiovisual production, livestreaming and post-production, including full debates, individual speeches and short-form digital content;

• Participant honoraria for debaters and other contributors;

• Travel and logistics for debaters and subject-matter experts;

• Regional production travel, enabling the organising and media teams to deliver the 10-part series across participating African countries;

• Publicity, recruitment and audience development;

• Event operations and local delivery costs; and

• Monitoring, evaluation and post-event follow-up, including tracking whether participants continue learning about AI safety, apply for opportunities, build relevant connections or explore career pathways.

• Branding, graphic design and creative production, including promotional materials, social-media assets, debate graphics and digital content templates
  

Who is on your team? What's your track record on similar projects?

The Good Debate is currently led by Onicah “Nickie” Ntswejakgosi, an international debate professional with 16+ years of experience across competitive debating, adjudication, training, talent development and tournament organisation. Rather than maintaining a large standing team, the project draws on relationships within existing debate networks across Africa and beyond—the same ecosystem I have participated in for more than a decade.

My experience spans multiple parts of the debate ecosystem:

Competitive debating: I was named Best Female Speaker in Botswana (2010) and went on to compete internationally, including reaching the octo-finals of PAUDC in South Africa (2012), becoming a Top 10 Best Speaker and PAUDC finalist in Nigeria (2013), reaching the quarter-finals of Jozi Rumble Debate Open in South Africa (2013), and the quarter-finals of PAUDC in Ghana (2015). I have also won multiple Best Speaker awards across national and international circuits.

Adjudication: I have adjudicated 100+ debates across middle-school, high-school and university levels in Africa and South Korea. In South Korea, I was contracted as a Doyen/Chair Adjudicator by the International Debate Society (IDS), chairing competitive debate sessions and providing structured individual and general feedback to debaters and fellow adjudicators. IDS also selected me to represent it as an affiliated adjudicator at national competitions, including the Korea Rookie Tournament (KRT) and Korea National Championship (KNC). I received multiple Best Judge/Adjudicator awards during my time in South Korea.

Adjudication leadership: I have served on Chief Adjudication Panels across Africa, including in Ghana, Botswana and South Africa, with responsibility for adjudication standards, judge coordination and tournament judging.

Large-scale tournament organisation: I contributed to the Organising Committee of the World Universities Debating Championship (WUDC), supporting the delivery of one of competitive debating’s major international tournaments.

Training and talent development: Since 2014, I have worked as a debate and public-speaking coach, trainer and adjudicator across Africa and South Korea, training high-school, university and competitive debaters in argumentation, critical thinking, persuasive communication and adjudication. Much of this work has involved identifying promising speakers and adjudicators and developing them through coaching, mentorship and detailed individual and team feedback.

I also served as President of the University of Botswana Speaking Union from 2014–2016, giving me experience not only as a competitor but in building and leading debate communities.

The Good Debate therefore is not question of whether we can find debaters, run debates, evaluate speakers or develop talent. Those are capabilities and networks I have spent more than a decade building. What this pilot tests is a different question: can that existing debate infrastructure be deliberately redirected toward identifying, exposing and developing exceptional talent for AI safety and other high-impact global challenges?

What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails?

The only foreseeable reason this project would fail to reach its intended scope is insufficient financing.

The Good Debate is deliberately designed as more than a conventional debate event. Each programme combines structured pre-learning, engagement with subject-matter experts, a professionally delivered live-audience debate, audiovisual production and livestreaming, digital content production and distribution, and post-event follow-up. Delivering the series across multiple countries also requires travel for the organising and media teams.

These components are not optional additions; they are central to the model. Removing structured learning and expert engagement weakens the quality of participants’ engagement with the subject. Removing the live audience changes the public-engagement mechanism. Reducing professional media production limits the project’s reach beyond those physically present. Eliminating regional travel prevents us from activating debate communities across multiple countries.

The most likely consequence of insufficient funding would therefore be reduced scale rather than an inability to execute the project. We would run fewer debates, operate in fewer countries, or reach fewer participants and audiences. Because the model is modular, funding can be translated directly into scope.

There is, of course, an empirical question the pilot is intended to test: whether this combination of structured learning → expert engagement → competitive debate → media → follow-up successfully moves talented participants from initial exposure toward deeper engagement with AI safety. If the evidence shows that it does not, we would modify or discontinue the model rather than scale an ineffective intervention.

How much money have you raised in the last 12 months, and from where?

$0. The Good Debate is a new initiative and has not yet received any external funding. We are currently raising funding for the initial pilot, and this is our first funding round.