UBC Sauder Public Speaking Competition 2017W

Each year, UBC Sauder's best undergraduate orators compete for $2,500 in scholarships and the title of Public Speaking Champion.

The UBC Sauder Public Speaking Competition is an annual invitational event for which COMM 395 Business Communications instructors nominate their most capable students from the past 12 months. Selected participants compete in a preliminary knockout round by recording and submitting speeches for the judging committee. Short-listed finalists are then invited to compete in front of an audience, delivering both prepared and impromptu presentations.

The 2017 competition

In the 2017 competition, each finalist was asked to prepare a six minute presentation on the topic Smartphones are making us stupid, narcissistic, and destroying our sense of empathy? If true, why can’t we put our phones down? They were then tasked with giving a two to three minute impromptu address in response to the question What's the most amazing place you've ever visited? The 2017 finalists included BComs Jared Braverman, Maia Brundage, Lewis Dillman, Murtaza Jaffery, and Harrison Pope.