Coaches – Youth Debate League

Adam is an experienced debater who has been participating at a competitive level for over 7 years. He has won many speaker and team awards at international tournaments such as Stanford, Harvard, Georgetown, and the Tournament of Champions. Adam first heard about debate at a seminar and decided to pursue it further. From debate, he has learned to think more critically, to write more effectively, to speak more convincingly, and to pay more attention to the world around him. In his free time, Adam likes reading, playing the piano, and going out with friends.

Adam first came up with the idea of Youth Debate League when he offered to teach a debate class free of charge for 15 students but received over 40 sign ups in less than 4 days. The number of people that signed up in the short amount of time despite the limit helped him realize the need for free, accessible debate education and inspired him to create an organization of like-minded people that work to make the art of debate an opportunity available to everyone.

Adam is an experienced debater who has been participating at a competitive level for over 5 years. He has won many speaker and team awards at international tournaments such as Stanford, Harvard, Georgetown, and the Tournament of Champions. Adam first heard about debate at a seminar and decided to pursue it further. From debate, he has learned to think more critically, to write more effectively, to speak more convincingly, and to pay more attention to the world around him. In his free time, Adam likes reading, playing the piano, and going out with friends.

Adam first came up with the idea of Youth Debate League when he offered to teach a debate class free of charge for 15 students but received over 40 sign ups in less than 4 days. The number of people that signed up in the short amount of time despite the limit helped him realize the need for free, accessible debate education and inspired him to create an organization of like-minded people that work to make the art of debate an opportunity available to everyone.

Adam's Awards

han.adam@youthdebate.ca

Executive Team

Nishesh joined YDL on January 29, 2023. He is a student attending Semiahmoo Secondary School. He has debated various formats over the course of three years. His debate journey started at a regionals tournament and has spiraled to attending various prestigious international tournaments. Nishesh has achieved excellence in debate and has received awards across all levels of debate. He has attended tournaments hosted by Harvard, Stanford, UBC, SFU, Waterloo, and has even taken part in the BC Law Foundation Cup twice. Nishesh is a very social person and outside of debate he loves to talk to his friends and go out. He also plays Soccer and Basketball. He is really excited for the opportunity to coach at YDL and is looking forward to helping others exceed at this wonderful activity!

jain.nishesh@youthdebate.ca

Henry joined YDL on Mar 3, 2023. He is the debate club president of Magee Secondary School and has about 4 years of debate experience. He has debated in multiple formats such as World Schools, British Parliamentary, cross-examination, and CNDF, but he specializes in World Schools and British parliamentary as the second/third speaker. He has attended debate tournaments such as Harvard, SFU, CUSID, WSDO, UBC, Western, and more. Besides debate, Henry participates in basketball, rugby, and writing. He looks forward to working with students!

gong.henry@youthdebate.ca

Sophie joined YDL Nov 9, 2023. She is an experienced youth in leadership and marketing management. She is the Media and Marketing head of Peer Leadership council in Elgin Park Secondary, the Chief of Finance in Youth Hunger Mission Foundation, Onboarding coordinator in Internal affairs of Canada Youth Climate Action team, selected youth teachers teaching Dollar with Sense in JA British Columbia Program and advanced entry for Conrad challenge 2023. Aside from Leadership, Sophie enjoys playing music in her spare time. She is a professional performer of the traditional instrument Zheng, started playing at the age of 4, and reached level 10 within 6 years, and is the first part Zheng of Azalea Ensemble under the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Sophie looks forward to this wonderful journey with the YDL family.

zhang.sophie@youthdebate.ca

Kai is a student at Elgin Park Secondary. He joined YDL on October 4, 2023. Kai is extremely delighted to help more students connect with the world of leadership and debate. He is a leader in 6 major clubs at his school, while staying one of the top students in all his classes. He has shown persistence, effort, and excellence. “In a world where everything is constantly changing, you need to keep an open mind.” Is what he has said to many students that he has inspired. His interests range from psychology, leadership, community service, and mental endurance. In one of his most inspiring speeches, Kai said, “Learning comes from accidents, accidents come from mistakes. This is how the world works. Even though it may be tough, it has brought us to a world of evolution and creativity.”

bundy.kai@youthdebate.ca

Coaches

Andrew Wang

Andrew is a Grade 10 IB student at Sir Winston Churchill High School in Calgary, Alberta. Ever since his first debate tournament in 8th grade where he opposed the misuse of Santa’s 9 reindeer, Andrew has pursued his passions in public speaking and worked to make debate more accessible locally. In his first year of competing, he taught himself debate from the foundations and won the Alberta Debate Provincial Championship without a coach. Since then, he has worked to jumpstart his school’s debate program, won awards at many other debate tournaments, and branched out his public speaking skills into Speech competitions and Model UN conferences across Canada. He loves to teach and is looking forward to mentoring younger debaters to become the best speakers they can be!

wang.andrew@youthdebate.ca

Raymond Li

Raymond joined YDL on Jan 15, 2022 and is a co-founder of YDL. Raymond is student at Semiahmoo Secondary. He has been debating for two years and has received several awards from local and national tournaments in various different styles of debate. He has only started attending tournaments for one year and has been a finalist in the Vancouver World Schools Tournament and La Costa Canyon World Schools Tournament and a quarterfinalist in the Stanford Invitational. He has also received multiple speaker awards including 5th speaker in the Varsity division at The Ed Long Invitational at The Hockaday School. Outside of debate, Raymond plays competitive badminton and hockey and is a certified snowboarding instructor. He looks forward to working with everyone!

li.raymond@youthdebate.ca

Brooke Ji

Brooke joined YDL on Oct 3, 2022. A student at Collingwood School’s Morven Campus, Brooke has dedicated over two years to debate. Since his beginnings at the start of the 2020 year, he has gone on to win awards at local, provincial, and global tournaments in a variety of styles, including BC provincials, SFU, and Harvard. Debate has truly helped him grow as an open-minded individual and learner, as well as provided valuable skills in critical thinking and persuasion. When he isn’t giving a speech at his school’s debate club or researching for the next debate topic you can find him reading, playing video games with his friends, hiking, or best of all, taking an undeserved nap.

ji.brooke@youthdebate.ca

Eva Wang

Eva joined YDL on Sept 7, 2022 and is a student at West Point Grey Academy. Since she first began debating in 2021, she has received multiple awards at various tournaments ranging from local to national in different styles. This included placing as the champion team in the 2022 Junior Provincial Debate Tournament, 2021 Interschool Debate Cup, 2022 Appleby Novice Tournament, and ranking as the first team in the 2022 Canadian Junior National Debating Championships. She also has won numerous speaker awards, including first junior speaker at the 2021 Vancouver World Schools Debate Tournament, 2022 Provincial Debate Tournament, 2022 SFU World Schools Invitational, as well as the first overall speaker at the 2022 McMaster High Schools BP Debate Tournament. Despite her short time debating, Eva has accumulated plenty of experience that she looks forward to sharing. Outside of debate, Eva often finds herself playing basketball with her friends or school team, practicing the violin, or spending time with her friends. She also has recently taken up Model UN and was a director of the Advanced Crisis Committee for the Vancouver Youth Model United Nations conference. She looks forward to working with her peers and is extremely grateful to be a part of such a progressive organization.

wang.eva@youthdebate.ca

Eric Ma

Eric joined YDL on March 10, 2023 and is a student currently studying in the United States. Having started debating since 8th grade, he has competed in several tournaments ranging many different styles, having extensive experience 5in both parliamentary and american debate formats. Outside of debate he enjoys playing the piano and volunteering in his spare time.

ma.eric@youthdebate.ca

Jason Song

Jason joined YDL on Apr 15, 2023. He is a grade 10 student currently attending Mulgrave school. He loves to joke around and have a good time in anything he does. Jason is extremely passionate about sharing his knowledge about debate and public speaking, and hopes for others to fall in love with debate like him. He is looking forward to interacting with everyone and having a blast!

song.jason@youthdebate.ca

Jerry Song

Jerry joined YDL on Apr 15, 2023. He is a grade 10 student at Mulgrave. He love hanging out with friends and trolling teachers whenever he gets the chance. Jerry fell in love with debate at a young age and wishes to spread my passion with others to ignite the same flame that was sparked in my heart a long time ago. Apart from debate, he also loves biking, baseball, table tennis, swimming, mock trial, and rap music. He is excited to talk to all of you guys and share his love of debate with everyone and looks forward to meeting everyone.

song.jerry@youthdebate.ca

Lucy Yin

Lucy Yin joined YDL on Aug 10, 2023. She is a freshman at R.E. Mountain Secondary School and began debating in grade 9 after joining her school’s debate club. Lucy’s debate journey has been full of surprises, from utterly failing her first school tournament to ranking high at nationals all within the same year! Lucy is (and always will be) a diehard STEM enthusiast, but debate has helped her open her mind to appreciate social studies and English. Debate has improved her analytical, writing, and communication skills, making it much less painful to analyze Shakespeare plays in class. Aside from debate, Lucy enjoys drawing, playing piano, composing music, and watching anime. Lucy is excited to start teaching at YDL!

yin.lucy@youthdebate.ca

Audrey Wei

Audrey has been a member of YDL since February 2023. She is a junior at Crofton House School and very excited to be working with a team of passionate debate students. She has been part of the debate community for 9 years and has achieved many of her debate goals. Ever since she was young, she enjoyed the enrichment that debate classes brought from “peaceful arguing” to all the world issues she has learnt about. Outside of debate, you can find Audrey working up her boxing form, lifting weights, and doing too much math. Audrey is ready to meet new people at YDL and learn together with the students.

wei.audrey@youthdebate.ca

Student Management Team

Ali Sadoughian

Ali joined YDL on Feb 20, 2023. He is a student at Elgin Park Secondary who is a proficient programmer with six years of experience in various programming languages including Java, C#, and Dart. He has a particular interest in developing software for both mobile devices and computers. His passion for programming has led him to successfully publish a mobile application after dedicating two years to its creation. Apart from coding, Ali’s interests range from mathematics, business, video editing, the Persian language, to playing the guitar and soccer. Ali is thrilled to join the YDL team and eagerly anticipates working with everyone.

sadoughian.ali@youthdebate.ca

Marketing Team

Carlos Zhu

Carlos joined YDL on Nov 20, 2022. He is a graphic designer at YDL. He is attending Elgin Park Secondary. Carlos has been drawing for 8 years and his goal is to attend a university for arts to become a concept artist. He has learned drawing from 7 different teachers resulting in him observing a wide variety of art styles and broadening his creativity. Over these 8 years of drawing Carlos has developed a more intricate view on colour, design and formatting. Aside from art, Carlos loves watching sci-fi movies, plays badminton competitively, and enjoys reading a wide variety of novels.

zhu.carlos@youthdebate.ca

Cyan Ni

Cyan joined YDL on April 2nd, 2024. He is currently a grade 11 student studying in the International Baccalaureate program at Semiahoo Secondary School., Cyan has a strong background in leadership from being actively present in the competitive swimming community and through tutoring he has helped several young students achieve academic excellence. During his 6 dedicated years as a competitive swimmer for the Pacific Sea Wolves Swim Club, Cyan had medaled and won countless competitions at a high level. After contributing many hours as a volunteer at swimming events and practises, he is now a coach trying to guide the youth to success using his own experience. Cyan is also a very motivated and reliable worker who always strives for perfection and is always looking for ways to improve. He hopes that his contribution will further develop YDL, establishing a healthy environment and helping more students recongize the wonders of debate.

ni.cyan@youthdebate.ca

Nicholas Shee

Nicholas joined YDL on Sept 10 2023. He’s currently studying at Burnaby South in 9th grade. He started in his school debate and speech club where he found his love for debate and speech. When he first started he had many troubles, but with the help of the great coaches and teammates he was able to be more confident and build better arguments. Nicholas now wants to share what he learned at his school club to help others get better with what he does online for YDL.

Shee.Nicholas@youthdebate.ca

Harley Liu

Harley joined YDL on September 7, 2023. He is attending grade 11 at Southridge School. Although he doesn’t have a strong background in debating, he has always enjoyed socializing with others, helping people, and making new friends. Aside from his school life, he has dedicated over 5 years of his life playing competitive golf, winning multiple golf tournaments, and strives to play Division 1 college golf. Harley is eager to assist YDL introduce debate to more students around the globe, as well as supporting YDL develop into a greater organization.

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liu.harley@youthdebate.ca

Yi Zhang

Yi joined YDL marketing in January 2024. She is a student at Elgin Park Secondary School. Yi loves art and has been drawing for five years. She has trained in a variety of mediums such as sketching and painting. Yi also plays badminton competitively and has been on the school team ever since the start of high school. She strives to improve her leadership, teamwork and professional skills. She is a member in clubs such as Student Council, Peer Leadership Council and Create Change Club. She is also a part of the first TEDx event held at Elgin Park Secondary School. Yi wants to use what she has learned from these experiences and broaden people’s perspectives.

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zhang.yi@youthdebate.ca

Alice Zhao

Alice Zhao is a student from Earl Marriott Secondary. She joined YDL marketing department on January 19th, 2024. Alice has lots of passion on publicize youth debate, and actively focus on advertise youth debate league. She has participate in a variety of club in her school, and is the vice president of the major club in school. She has a good grade and multiple experiences on volunteering. Moreover, Alice has a lot of extra activities such as boxing, playing the violin and public speaking. She believe, communication is the key to connect to the world, and it’s important to express different opinions and think critically.

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zhao.alice@youthdebate.ca

Lennox Wang

Lennox joined YDL marketing in January, 2024. They are a student at Grandview Heights Secondary School. Lennox is a Level 3 Flight Corporal of 907 “Black Knights” Canadian Air Cadet Squadron. They are also a fourth year scout at Troop 10th White Rock, as well as Patrol Leader of the Northern Lights Patrol. Lennox aims to become a better leader and team member, as well as improving in research and design. Lennox is a member of the Grizzlies Junior Girls Basketball team, GHS Speech and Debate Club, and FRC Ursa Major Robotics. They look forward to learning new skills and different perspectives of political standpoints.

wang.lennox@youthdebate.ca

Funding Team

Sophie Yang

Sophie joined YDL on March 19. She is extremely delighted to help introduce more students into the world of debate. As a student from Mulgrave School who has dedicated over 2 years to debate, she has spent countless hours for preparation and practice. She has achieved success in various debating competitions, earning a reputation as a formidable opponent and a proud member of the debating community. Her favourite aspect of debate is to attend tournaments to meet people and enjoy the travel with friends.

yang.sophie@youthdebate.ca

Website Team

John Gao

John joined YDL on November 11, 2023. He is attending Elgin Park Secondary. At school, John takes many classes above grade. Outside of school, John likes being athletic. He plays badminton competitively and is one of the top players in his school team. He also played Div 2 soccer at Coastal FC for 6 years. John works towards strengthening his resume for university applications. He stays on top of his classes and is a part of many clubs.

gao.john@youthdebate.ca

Jessica Yang

Jessica joined YDL on Mar 5, 2023. She is a student attending Semiahmoo Secondary. She participates in many extracurricular activities and has an interest in foreign languages and mathematics. She likes to challenge herself and experiment with new ideas whenever she can. Some of her hobbies include reading and photography.

yang.jessica@youthdebate.ca