Only four Cambodian students made it through the first two rounds to the finals of the 2014 SpringBoard4Cambodia English Speaking Championship. Each was from a different university, and first-year AUPP student Lim Vannaroth was one of the four.
On Thursday January 23rd, he and the other three finalists presented speeches to an audience of about five hundred people at Phnom Penh’s Chaktomuk Conference Center. In the final round, finalists each had to argue for or against a statement provided to them only fifteen minutes before their speeches.
Lim Vannaroth’s topic was ‘We should invest now in a low carbon economy powered by renewables.’ He argued that moving toward an economy making use of solar, wind, and hydro power would not only help avoid potentially devastating environmental damage to the planet, but also provide an economic advantage by reducing dependence on ever scarcer – and therefore more expensive – fossil fuels.
Other contestants spoke on topics ranging from cyber bullying to ASEAN integration. After their presentations, each student had to answer questions on their given topics from members of the panel of judges.
The contest ended with Lim Vannaroth winning third prize, a trip for three days to an ASEAN country. His win in this highly competitive contest was made all the more noteworthy by the fact that he only completed his preparatory semester at the end of 2013, and was less than three weeks into the first year of AUPP’s academic program.
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