iSpeech Debate Academy

Who we are

iSpeech Debate Academy was founded to provide public speaking and debate classes to students primarily in the GTA. Our mission is to develop the leaders of tomorrow by encouraging them to speak up today.  Our coaches are highly successful competitive debaters, with years of experience competing and and judging across Canada and world.

We welcome students with a wide range of experience. We help students compete in local, national and international public speaking and debate tournaments. We help shy students develop their confidence  to improve their studies.

We keep a low instructor to student ratio so that students can get plenty of valuable feedback and speaking time. 

Coaches

Michael Chen

Michael Chen is a business/political science dual degree student at the University of Pennsylvania and former member of the Canadian National Debate Team. In addition to three years of coaching experience, he is the current provincial champion and has won at the University of Pennsylvania, Queens, Western, and the Hong Kong World Schools Debating Championships. Outside of debate, Michael is a two-time DECA provincial champion and the 2022 John West Memorial Scholar, and research assistant to Dr. Maurice Schweitzer. He also served as co-chair on the Town of Aurora Youth Engagement Committee and was recently awarded the 2022 Aurora Youth Volunteer of the Year award. 




Maria Xu

Maria is an incoming freshman at Harvard University. She has been a member of Team Canada for two years and will be competing at WSDC in Hanoi this July. She has been debating for upwards of 5 years and has experience in World Schools, BP, and CP. She is the champion of the Hart House High School Championships 2023 and UWaterloo High School Debate Tournament 2021, and has broken at numerous other tournaments, including making the finals of the Winter Holidays Open 2022 and UPenn Worlds Schools Tournament 2022 as well as the semifinals of the Paris Worlds Schools Championships 2022 and Oldham Cup 2023. When not debating, studying, or reading, Maria loves to take walks, bake bread, and peruse Twitter.



Tanush Agarwal

Tanush is a Philosophy, Political Science, and Economics student at the University of Oxford. Tanush has over 30 awards in both BP and WSDC, notably championing Western HST and CWSDC, making the Grand Finals of Hart House, WHO, and IDTL and the Semi-Finals of Harvard WSCI twice. He was also a member of the Canadian National Team, finishing in the Grand Finals of several major tournaments, including WSDC itself.

Daniel Svirsky

Daniel is a third year student currently pursuing an Honours in Business Administration degree at the University of Western Ontario Ivey Business School. Entering his sixth competitive year, he has found success both in the Canadian high school circuit and international university circuit. Daniel has broken at over 15 tournaments hosted by renowned institutions such as Cornell University (Semi-finalist), the University of Southern California (finalist), McGill University, and King's college London (Pro-Am Champion). In his sophomore year alone, Daniel won the British Parliamentary National Championships. He is serving as the Vice President of Training of the University of Western Ontario Debate Society and executive director of the Canadian University Intercollegiate Society for Debate in the upcoming year.


Stellar Zhang

Stellar is a current business and political science student at McGill University and has over four years of experience in competitive debating and represented Team Canada at the World Schools Debating Championships in 2022, where they ranked as quarterfinalists. Across her high school career, she has championed the Harvard World Schools Invitational, the Queen’s University Debate Championships, and the Hong Kong World Schools Debate Open.

David Zu

David is a second-year Finance & Economics student at the University of Toronto. He has been competitively debating, in both high school and university, for five years. Some of his achievements include making novice finals at Yale IV and NAUDC, open finals at Waterloo and McMaster, and winning Seagrams IV. When he’s not debating, David enjoys playing piano, going on biking sessions with friends, and listening to rap. 

Crystal Zhang

Crystal is a first-year student in Rotman Commerce at the University of Toronto. She won the McGill 2022 tournament, was a finalist at the Canadian BP Nationals, and was a novice finalist at Princeton IV. She has 4 years of coaching experience and over 7 years of debating experience. When she's not teaching debate she's probably running long distance or writing blog posts.