Renowned Judges from Harvard, MIT, Leading Universities. Prizes. Ages 11-18.
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1,000 entries/10,000 students
Influence the Global AI Conversation
Register Today
1,000 entries/10,000 students
Influence the Global AI Conversation
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Fall Topics 2025 (Registration Opens Soon!)
Junior: (Ages 11-13): Governments should deploy AI instructors as a free public educational resource. Backgrounder | Podcast (AI generated!) (1200 word essay, 7 minute speeches)
Senior: (ages 14-18): Frontier AI models should be open source. Backgrounder | Podcast (AI generated!) (2000 word essay, 7 minute speeches)
*Note on word count: any citations/bibliography don’t count toward the word count total, essays exceeding the word count will not be considered!
Students may also submit speeches on either side of the topic.
Fall 2025 Competiton Details Below
Speech Winners & Finalists
1st -Siddharth Gowthaman, Speech & Debate India
2nd –Vicky Zhao, Avalon Junior High School
Semifinalists
Wallace Guo, Holy Trinity School
Katie Lin, Appleby College
Quarterfinalists
Shreya Mehta, Speech & Debate India
Max Zhang - Linbrook School
Flourishing Champions & Finalists
1st -- Kate Kim & Marley Han, NAVI
2nd -- Aadith Kacholia & Arnav Agrawal, Speech & Debate India
Semifinalists
Lida Sampson & Roden Hartsough, Ruth Asawa School of the Arts
Ava Alperin, Celine Bell, Calleigh Meta, Estella Stevens, Hanna Taylor, Marymount School of New York
Generative AI
1st -- Aarvi Jajodia & Shanaya Ranka, Speech & Debate India
2nd -- Krish Bhakta & Jaiden Bhakta, GT/Alpha
Semifinalists
Riya Karandikar & Rishit Machhar, Speech & Debate India
Jinghan Su & Jason Wu, Independent
Quarterfinalists
Lucas Sanner, Georgetown/GT Alpha
Alexander Shae, Elizabeth Choi, Elizabeth Prainito, Olivia Fung, Paul Shim, NAVI
Varsha Reddy & Devika Joshi, Speech & Debate India
Selina Chen & Charmaine Lam, Vancouver Debate Academy
Selina Chen & Charmaine Lam VDA
Poverty Champions & Finalists
1st - Ema Sun & Shine Wu, BL UBC
2nd - Charlotte Ellison & Eleanor Driver, Adelaide
Elementary Winner
Austin Choe, Anderson Song & Luke Shim, NAVI
Round I
October 7, 2025 – Initial Essays Due
October 21, 2025 – Break Announced
32 entries advance: the top 16 Pro & 16 Con essays from each division
Round II
Breaking teams write one rebuttal essay
October 28, 2025 – Rebuttals Due
November 5, 2025 – Break Announced
16 entries advance: the top 8 Pro & 8 Con essays from each division
Round III Finals – December 7, 2025 (Zoom)
8:00 AM ET – Octofinals
9:30 AM ET – Quarterfinals
11:00 AM ET – Semifinals
12:30 PM ET – Finals
Round I:
November 1st, 2025 – Videos of Speeches Due
November 14th, 2025 – Break Announced
Top 20% of submissions in each category advance:
Round II:
November 21st, 2025: Submit the same speech, or a new speech
November 28th, 2025 – Break Announced
Top 5 submissions in each category advance
Round III Finals – December 7th: 8am ET
Live speeches in front of a panel
November 21st, 2025: Perform the same speech, or a new speech
modusponensinstitute.com
debateus.org
tkethics.org
We are dedicated to making AI literacy a shared journey—one that unfolds through debate, discussion, and collaborative discovery, equipping our community with the tools to foster the development an informed and inclusive digital future.
Tina Austin
Lecturer, Innovative Lecturer in generative AI | Regenerative Medicine and ethics, UCLA
Amy Bauschard
Professor, Early childhood Education, Mercyhurst University
James Bedford
UNSW College
Amanda Bickerstaff
Founder, AI for Education
Justin Bruno
AI Strategist @ Michigan Virtual
Dr. Jennifer Camille Dempsey
Director, PennWest Center for AI and Emerging Technologies
Joe Carver
Associate Head of School, The Meadows School
David Coale
Partner at Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann, LLP
Darren Coxon
Founder of Node.edu
Dr. Alan Coverstone
Founder, Covariant Education
Jerry Crisci
Co-founder of the Center for Innovation at the Scarsdale Public Schools
Vera Cubero
Emerging Technologies Consultant
North Carolina Department of Public Instruction
Dr. Laura Dumin
AI Institute, American Association of Colleges and Universities
Matthew Esterman
Founder / Director - The Next Word
Benjamin Durham
Ploto, Ethical Data Collection Solutions
Sofia Fenichells
Founder, StudyHall.ai
Eric Fraser
CTO, Dr. Lisa AI
Dr. Thomas Goodnight
Professor, USC; identified as one of the top 5 scholars in argumentation in the twentieth century
Alex Gray
AI Network Lead, British Schools in the Middle East
Dr. Jason Gulya
Chair, AI Council, Berkeley College
Aaron Hardy
Debate Coach, UC Berkeley
Rich Heimann
Director of Artificial Intelligence
State of South Carolina
Dr. David Hingstman
Directore of Debate, Iowa (retired)
J.D. Harvard Law School
John Hines
Co-Founder, DebaterHub.com (AI)|
Rosalie (Roz) Hirch
Phd candidate in Linguistics & Technology
Maim Hoque
Senior Business Consultant, IBM
Dr. James Hutson
PHds in Art and Artificial Intelligence
Lindenwood University
Alex Iftimie
Deputy General Counsel, OpenAI
Dr. Michelle Kassorla
Professor of English & Technology, Georgia State
Perimeter
Dr. Michael Kearney
Associate Manager, Data Science - Development & AI, Meijer
Zach Kinzler
Boodlebox.ai
Wes Kriesel
AI Manager, Orange County Department of Education
Mary Lang
Center for Leadership, Equity, and Research (CLEAR), Stanford University
Annie Liao
Founder, Build Club
Melissa Loble
Chief Academic Officer, Instructure (Canvas)
Dr. LeAnne Lindsey
Director of EdTech and Innovation, AZ Institute for Education and the Economy
Brian Manuel
Former Director of Policy Debate, Stanford University
Paul Matthews
CEO, MyTeacherAide
Lori Mazor
Founder, Synthetivity.ai
Devika Mehta
Deputy Editor, Jagran New Media
Susan Morrisey
Roach Leadership Center, AI Consultant, Boston College
Dr. Kimberly Pace-Becker
Iowa State & Moxie Academic Labs
Dr. Sabba Quidwai
Founder, Designing Schools
Dr. Anand Rao
Chair, Department of Communication & Digital Studies
University of Mary Washington
Tom Rogerson
Headmaster, Cottesmore School (UK)
Rebecca Rutschmann
Coaching & AI Consultant
Silvio Sangineto
AI Design Leader, Microsoft
Arlo Sporn
Philosopher, Corporate Lawyers
Theo Stapleton
PhD University of Cambridge
Nisha Talagala
Founder & CEO, AI Club
Ryan Tannenbaum
Founder, for.education
Dr. Tatjana Titareva
Titareva AI Education Consultancy
Sophie Theodoro
Designing Schools
Ghazali bin Abdul Wahab
Nanyang Technological University Singapore
Edward Williams
Debate Coach, Harvard Debate Council
Dr. Jessica Yeats
Principal Data Scientist, Autonomous Vehicles, NVIDIA
Dr. Joseph Zompetti
Full Professor of Communication, Illinois State
Please reach us at Stefan.Bauschard@gmail.com if you cannot find an answer to your question.
Schools/institutions can place any number of students on a team to write the essay. If the school team advances, the school must select two students per entry to debate online. The online debate format is 2 vs. 2.
Schools/institutions can submit as many video entries for the public speaking contest as they wish.
Schools can submit as many essays as they wish, but the students in each group must take responsibility for writing a particular essay. If a particular essay advances, the students who wrote it must compete online. Each entry must be supported by a separate fee, but the fee covers as many students in a group as the school wishes.
Yes, but they must pay both entry fees.
Non-school entries may participate, but they must either be part of an institution (for example, an after-school program) or assumed responsibility for by an adult (21+). The adult must submit the entry.
A rubric is available describing how each essay and speech will be judged. All videos and essays will be anonymously reviewed (no student or school information will be present).
Students may use as much or as little AI as they wish when submitting their essays. The important thing to consider is if the essay meets the rubric criteria and if the students will be prepared to verbally defend their arguments as well as rebut their opponents’ arguments in the elimination debates.
Elimination judges are listed above. Preliminary judges are college students, graduate students, and teachers.
For Essay + Debate:
In each division, 32 essays advance after Round I (16 Pro, 16 Con). Then 16 rebuttals move to finals (8 Pro, 8 Con), with teams competing in live octofinals, quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals.
For Speech:
Top 20% of video submissions in each division advance to Round II. From there, the top 5 in each category move to the live final round on December 7.
A “submission” is defined as a single initial essay. You may have any number of students collaborate on one essay. However, if the essay advances to the live debate rounds, you must choose two students from the original team to represent it in the debates. There is no additional judging fee. Institutions may submit as many entries as they like.
Essay + Debate Competition
Each essay submission is $150 USD unless your team submits 10 or more entries — then the fee is reduced to $100 USD per entry.
Speech Competition
Each speech submission is $150 USD, or $100 USD if your team submits 10 or more entries.
Students submit a 7-minute recorded speech (based on the prompt for their age group). They may submit again in Round II if they advance.
Early Bird Discounts (apply to both Essay and Speech competitions):
Student names are not required at registration. You may register and pay for your entries starting July 1, 2025, and submit student details later. Registration closes when entries are due.
Entries fees will be utilized to support the administration of the tournament, including small payments to the preliminary debate judges who will be reading a lot of essays and videos. We are currently raising money to provide prizes for those who reach the elimination rounds.
Yes, we will make materials to support student preparation available on the website. We will also make other materials available in order to support society-wide discussion of AI.
We will use rubrics provided to the judges to score the essays as well as the format of the elimination debates by November 15, 2024. We will also share the judge training materials no later than February 1, 2025.
Similarly, we will provide sign-language services to any deaf students who reach the elimination debates.
English is the default language for the live debates, but will work with suppliers to provide ai-driven translation technologies if students wish to speak in other languages.
Similarly, we will provide sign-language services to any deaf students who reach the elimination debates.
We are actively seeking event sponsors and sponsors of the age-based divisions. We hope to provide scholarship prizes to all of the division winners and 2nd place contestants.
Powerful individuals and corporations with staggering wealth and influence are leading us into a new industrial revolution defined by artificial intelligence (AI). On its current trajectory, AI is aimed at replicating and then exceeding human-level intelligence. This AI will redefine everything, from our personal relationships to education, work, and even the very beginning and end of life.
While this technological transformation is likely inevitable, it is through our collective action that we can each find our home in this new world in a way that promotes human flourishing. The future of AI belongs to all of us, not just the limited number of individuals who are currently driving its development
Global AI Debates was created to empower students to become active participants in shaping the AI revolution, including what it means to be "AI Literate." We believe that AI literacy is not something that should be co-created through open dialogue and exchange across all members of society, including the AI systems themselves.
The decisions we make today about AI will echo through the generations. This is a chance to be part of that crucial conversation and help define the world you want to live in. Get involved in the Global AI Debates - the future is yours to shape.
It is my bias that the students themselves will start to drive this conversation. This is already starting to happen in some spaces. This is why I have said many times before that debating is one of the most important skills we can teach students in the era of AI. Dwayne Matthews, TomorrowNow Learning Labs, XPRIZE Advisor