Summit Debate Competitors

The oldest and largest speech and debate honor society, the National Speech & Debate Association, provides educational resources to middle and high school students who participate in interscholastic speech, interp and debate competitions.

International Debate Education Association (IDEA) was created by The Open Society Foundations (OSF) in 1999 to coordinate its debate programs. Today, IDEA is a global network of organizations that uses debate as a way to give young people a voice. IDEA is the world's leading provider of debate education, providing resources, training, and events to educators and young people. The network works with schools, universities, debate organizations, and community groups and collaborates with foundations, NGOs, businesses, and governments. All this helps IDEA to promote mutual understanding, democracy globally and peacebuilding by supporting discussion and active citizenship locally. IDEA's Activities IDEA's activities include a wide range of educational and strategic initiatives, from developing training programs to international student exchanges and international youth forums. We have organized debates in more than 50 countries around the world in 60 languages! Currently, IDEA is officially registered and operates in the following locations: IDEA Middle East and North Africa IDEA United Kingdom IDEA Netherlands IDEA Central Asia IDEA South East Europe IDEA CA is the leading regional provider of debate education in Central Asia, providing resources, training, and events to educators and young people in across the region and the CIS. It has been actively working with young people through debate since 2010, starting as a Soros Foundation program. IDEA CA became an independent organization in 2014, continuing the empowering of young people by teaching them critical thinking, argumentation, active listening, and respect for dissenting opinions, therefore building a culture of open and equal dialogue in Central Asia. Through its activities, IDEA CA gives young people an opportunity to be heard through education, debate and by raising their awareness about worldwide issues.

The California Academic Decathlon Association is a statewide non-profit organization that encourages enthusiasm for learning by acknowledging academic excellence among California high school students of different achievement levels. This is accomplished by providing local, regional and state multidisciplinary academic competitions based on the Academic Decathlon® curricula. All California public and private high schools are eligible to compete. Teams of students compete in ten areas: art, economics, essay, interview, literature, mathematics, music, science, social science and speech which are based on a relevant and challenging theme each year. A unique aspect of the program is that teams are composed of students from all academic achievement levels. Winning teams advance through the local, regional, and state levels of competition. The culminating event at the regional and state competitions is the exhilarating award ceremony where gold, silver and bronze medals are presented to the top students in each category in every event in each division. The overall highest scoring team is awarded the state champion team trophy. This team will then compete against other state champions at the United States Academic Decathlon® National Final Competition which is hosted by a different state each year.