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ADI
About Us
The Austin Debate Institute is a top-of-the-line Speech and Debate camp founded by Tori Xiao and Neil Choudhary dedicated to spreading a shared passion for speech and debate. The camp is staffed by some of the nation's best high school speakers and debaters with a 1:3 teacher to student ratio.
Our mission is to create a safe learning space for incoming 6th-9th graders who are interested in speech and debate and want to improve their public speaking and debating skills. We work to educate young minds to not only be future speakers and debaters, but also excellent students who can navigate the complexities of school and life.
Our founders and instructors are from Westwood High School, Texas' premier Speech and Debate program. For the past decade, our school has been continuously ranked within the Top 10 programs in the nation and #1 in the state. In our history, our students have reached national championships and won multiple state titles for speech and debate. This legacy of success is thanks to our students attending this educational camp!
Directors of Austin Debate Institute
Eric Gong is a rising junior at Westwood High School. Eric has qualified for the TFA state tournament and achieved success in both state and national tournaments. Outside of debate he enjoys gaming and listening to music. Eric's leadership and service have made ADI one of the nation's best pre-high school debate institutes. He plans to continue his debate career and success in the upcoming years.
Vaishnuv Thiagarajan is a rising senior at Westwood High School. Vaishnuv has competed in a wide variety of events from Policy Debate to Original Oratory, achieving success at all levels and winning multiple national tournaments. After becoming one of the best freshman debaters in the country, he made history by founding the Interpretation Events Program at Westwood, which has already made shockwaves on the national speech circuit. He's currently placed within the Top 18 in Texas for Original Oratory, and ranked 45th Nationally.
Our Founders
Tori Xiao (top photo) is a student at Rice University. During her time at Westwood, she saw success at the local, state, and national levels of competition. She served as the Vice President of Westwood Speech and Debate during the 2022-2023 school year.
Neil Choudhary (bottom photo) is a student at Dartmouth University. During his time at Westwood, Neil competed across the nation, earning numerous accolades and being ranked #7 in the country during his senior year. He served as the Policy Debate Captain for the 2022-2023 school year.
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