Organizing Commitee

  • Aaron Kwon

    Aaron is the owner of New Era Academy and the Korean representative of TDI. He has been running debate camps since 2010 and is a veteran in creating high-quality debate events. He has a great passion for offline debating and hopes to expand the debate circuit within South Korea.

  • Sally Lee

    Sally is a distinguished debater and adjudicator, celebrated as an Asian Champion, Korean Champion, and Overall Best Speaker of Northeast Asia. She has made significant contributions to the debating community, serving on the Adjudication Core for prestigious international and regional championships such as the Asian BP Debate Championship, United Asian Debating Championships, and Northeast Asian Debate Championship. Additionally, she has been an invited adjudicator and advisor for numerous tournaments, including the Australasians Inter-varsity Debating Championship. In addition to her extensive experience in inter-collegiate debating tournaments, Sally is a dedicated schools debate coach. She represents SNT Edu, one of the country’s most renowned and long-standing debate academies, renowned for cultivating national and international champions. Beyond her professional endeavors, Sally is deeply committed to expanding educational opportunities. In her free time, she engages in community service programs and collaborates with non-profit organizations, teaching debate and fostering awareness of critical global issues among students worldwide.

  • Aljohn Bation

    Aljohn Bation has dedicated 10 years to the field of education and currently serves as the CEO of A+ English Intensive Academy in Vietnam, where he is committed to enhancing students' Public Speaking skills. In 2021, he received recognition as the 4th Best Judge at the Vietnam British Championship. Additionally, he mentored high school debaters on the second season of "The Debaters," aired on Vietnam National Television for Education. Recently, he collaborated with the Miss Cosmo International Organization to host a Critical Thinking Workshop, where he shared valuable insights on the significance of critical thinking skills in Public speaking.

Partners

  • Isla Daryl Louis

    Isla has made the break rounds of WUDC and the regional majors 10 times - one of the few in history to have done so. These included panelling the Semi at Worlds in 2014, DCA-ing at Australs in 2015. He also spoke for the highest breaking Asian team at Australs in 2013. Debaters who he has coached through the years have won accolades at TDI, WSDC, and WUDC. Most of them are either alumni or current students of the US’s and UK’s Top 50 High Schools and Universities. Today, he directs Asia Debating out of Shanghai and maintains other small export and consulting operations in the city. Isla is academically affiliated with both Ateneo and the UCL School of Management.

  • Albert Kamahlendra

    Albert is the co-founder and CEO of Intertext Education, an events & softskills training company with the goal of increasing access to softskills development to underserved communities. In his decade of training and outreach to rural areas in Borneo he brings a wealth of experience having coached more than 1,000 students in over 30 schools and universities across Malaysia and Asia.

Head Coaches

  • Przemek Stolarski

    In his own debating career, Przemek has reached the final rounds of more than 50 international competitions, including LSE Open, Doxbridge IV, and Imperial Open. His recent achievements include advancing to the open semi-final of Oxford IV and winning a nomination to speak at the legendary tournament of champions: HWS Round Robin. As a judge, Przemek has broken at the European Universities Debating Championship and served as Chief Adjudicator for over 20 tournaments.

    Although debate coaching is no longer his full-time job, Przemek has stayed in the world of education, currently pursuing a career as a learning designer for a major consulting firm. He holds a BA in International Relations and Social Anthropology from SOAS, University of London, and a Ed.M from Harvard University.

  • Naama Benamy

    Naama is an instructor from New Era Academy. Though Naama only discovered her love for debating in university, she is one of Korea’s best debaters.

    KNC 2024 - Semi-Finalist and 4th Best Speaker

    NEADC 2024 - Semi-Finalist

Staff

  • Melissa Yang

    Melissa has been the manager of New Era Academy for the past two years. She is highly experienced in running large debate events and was the main manager of Jeju TDI Summer 2024. Furthermore, Melissa is fluent in English, Chinese and Korean.

  • Roy Song

    Roy, a Junior at North London Collegiate School Jeju, has been debating for five years with a focus on the British Parliamentary (BP) format. Roy will be the student liason and organizer for this event. One of his most notable achievements includes making the ESL Finals at the Oxford Schools’ Debating Competition, where he was part of the first Korean team in history to advance beyond the preliminary rounds. Additionally, Roy has represented the South Korean BP team in the Six Nations and Eight Nations BP Competitions, earning champion and finalist titles, respectively. He was also named MVP for Team Korea at the Six Nations BP competition and recently made the finals for Cambridge Schools' North Asia.