Ahmed Deepto shares the story of Mashahed Hassan Simanta, a young debater, public speaker and trainer who has won several accolades at home and abroad
While many may go numb or have a panic attack if asked to give a speech in front of a full house audience, it has never been a problem for Mashahed Hassan Simanta, a third year student of Institute of Business Administration of Jahangirnagar University. Rather it is his forte. Capturing the attention of his audience as he motivates them entertainingly to teach them communication, leadership and public speaking skills is something that Simanta does quite frequently.
The 22-year-old speaker has already shown his talent not only in public speaking but also in debating at prestigious competitions at home and abroad.
In July this year, Simanta was selected as the most ‘appreciated faculty member’ by the evaluation of trainees’ at an eight-day long training session in China organised by World Debate Institute of United States. At that session, Simanta lectured and trained numerous students from different universities of China about how to use logic, make arguments and taking effective decisions along with 19 other faculties from different parts of the world.
Simanta also participated as an ‘Independent Adjudicator’ at Oxford Inter Varsity Debate of University of Oxford and at Cambridge Inter Varsity Debate of University of Cambridge in 2012 and 2013.
Simanta lives with his family at capital’s Banglamotor area. His father, Mahmud Hassan is the joint secretary of Ministry of Liberation War Affairs of Bangladesh and mother Shaheena Akter, a home maker. He has a younger brother who is a 10th grader in BIAM School.
Simanta’s story however started quite differently as he had no interest in debate in his childhood. Rather he was an introvert child. As his father is a government official who had been shifted once even twice in a year, Simanta had little opportunity to stick to a group of friends. He has gone to 13 schools across the country.
‘Simanta even took longer than usual to start talking as a child, but once he did, he has not been shy. He used to speak meaningful sentences from a very tender age. He used to recite poem in the family programmes and amazed us with his magical words,’ says Shaheena Akter, mother of Simanta to New Age Youth.
Simanta, however always enjoyed acting in stage plays and participate in unprepared speech competitions since childhood. In 2003, when he was in fifth grade, he bagged silver medal for acting in ‘Jatiyo Shishu Puroshkar’(National Children Award) organised by Bangladesh Shishu Academy and after four years he again got ‘Jatiyo Shishu Puroshkar’ award and bagged gold medal for unprepared speech. ‘These two achievements in childhood helped me get rid of stage fright even more,’ says Simanta.
In 2012, after the admission in IBA of Jahangirnagar University, Simanta found interest in debating after attending a welcoming workshop organised by the Jahangirnagar University Central Debate Organisation. At present, he is the president of the organisation. Since then, he flourished as a spontaneous public speaker, motivator, trainer and a successful debater.
The list of national and international achievements of Simanta over the last three years is a long one indeed. He has already mentored over 50 motivational sessions, attended 16 international debate compititions in India, Malaysia, China and United Kingdom. At home, Simanta attended 23 university level parliamentary debate grand finales and won 15 of them. Individually, the young debater has a tally of 25 ‘Best Speaker’ awards in competioins at home and abroad.
In addition, he also received 32 awards for public speaking, 10 awards for his ventures with Model United Nation events, business and policymaking competitions.
This year Siamanta has also provided lectures on mentoring and motivation at Faculty of Business Studies, University of Dhaka and attended as a Resource Person at United Nations Literacy Programme in Dhaka. He also trains students with logical argument tactics at Jagannath University and London College of Legal Studies (South), Dhaka.
Simanta often finds out that his students at the training sessions are elder than him. While teaching Public Speaking at Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Bangladesh, he saw that most of trainees were elder than him. ‘I was a little nervous so I started to brainstorm on how I could make the lecture more interesting. Most of the participants were in the age bracket of 25 to 60. Finally, that went very well,’ says the 22-year-old.
‘Very few people actually can tell that I’m supposed to mentor a session as I walk into a classroom, I suppose that happens because I look younger than many university students, let alone a trainer. It feels great to see participants taking notes, snaps and videos of my lectures,’ Simanta adds.
‘I never debate to win, rather I debate to lead everyone to my point of view. I think there are three weapons to win a debate: firstly, believe what you are going to deliver, make your argument easy so that anyone can understand, and then let the audience take their decision.
A fan of Craig Valentine of New Zealand, the 1999 World Champion for public speaking, Simanta also tries to make people laugh once every minute. I make my presentations more interesting by using movie clips or acting some sequences that is related to the particular topic and try to deliver a special message to the audience,’ says the young debater.
Simanata conveys New Age Youth that there are differences between national and international debate competitions. ‘Whereas television debates in this country only judges a participant’s pronunciation, grammar and presentation, international adjudicators see whether you can hammer the argument home,’ says Simanta.
Simanta believes more Bangladeshi debaters could participate in debating competitions abroad if the registration and air-fare were lower. He also assures that debating and public speaking can add tremendous value to extracurricular requirements for admission in foreign schools or land you your dream job. ‘Although participating in international tours is costly, it can get you a ladder to higher places. For example, the other faculty from Bangladesh who went to China to attend the World Debate Institute with me got a job as a consultant in World Bank and now studies at University of Oxford,’ he concludes.