‘Wasn’t expecting the win’: NUS law student tops international public speaking contest

SINGAPORE – By his own admission, Mr Kamal Ashraf Kamil Jumat was not “particularly spectacular” at debating throughout his teenage years, even though he enjoyed it, having picked it up when he was 11.

When the 24-year-old enrolled in the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) law school in 2022, he took a step back from competitive debating and public speaking so he could do more volunteer work.

But after a tutor nominated him to compete in the World Universities Public Speaking Invitational Championship in Macau in August, he took up the gauntlet – and ended up winning the top prize, best­ing speakers from 10 other universities including Stanford, Oxford and Tsinghua.

“I was quite surprised,” Mr Kamal­ told The Straits Times. “I was really impressed by the other speeches so I wasn’t expecting the win.”

He wowed the judges with his delivery in all components of the competition – a four-minute prepared speech, a question-and-answer segment, and a two-minute speech he had to deliver on the fly.

But Mr Kamal admitted he was not confident about the impromptu speech. “I couldn’t tell whether it was completely coherent and impactful,” he said.

In the end, what worked for him was relying on his love of language.

“English class was always my favourite,” he told ST, and one Eng­lish lesson, in particular, saved the day.

With only 10 seconds to think up a speech, Mr Kamal recalled learning about tabula rasa – a Latin term that means “blank slate” – in an English language and literature class at junior college.

The philosophical term, which suggests that people are born without innate knowledge and that mental content is gained through experiences, then became the starting point that took him through his final speech.

Ms Sim Ee Waun, his tutor at NUS’ Department of Communications and New Media, where he had taken a module, watched the competition through a live stream on YouTube and called the impromptu speech “brilliant”.

In the months leading up to the competition, Ms Sim had also encouraged Mr Kamal to leverage his linguistic interest as he crafted his prepared speech.

“The guiding principle that she gave me is to prioritise authenticity – give a speech that only I can give,” said Mr Kamal.

And so, in his four-minute speech titled Bringing Tomorrow, where he spoke about how a diverse future is created through active steps, Mr Kamal chose to use Singlish to illustrate his point.

“I wanted to talk about Singlish as this creation of people wanting to connect and communicate with each other,” he told ST.

When he was announced as the winner, Mr Kamal said he “could feel the warmth and support from the people back home” as congratulatory messages streamed in on his phone.

His family members were especially grateful that his hard work had paid off, having watched his public speaking and debating journey over the years.

“In primary school, my parents always helped me get ready to present in front of people... and (in junior college), they used to send me to far-off tournament venues when I got the chance to compete,” he said.

Looking back on his childhood, Mr Kamal said he had always enjoyed chatting with people around him.

“I was always practising little role-play presentations. And whenever visitors came over for Hari Raya, I used to go up and try and talk to them as much as a kid could,” he said.

Over the years, his love for language and communication evolved into an appreciation of how language functions and the various ways it is interpreted. This has even influenced him to take up law.

“(Law is) one of the few professions that deal with language on a daily basis,” he said.

In addition to speaking English and Malay, Mr Kamal can speak basic Arabic, Spanish and Swahili, and is currently learning basic-level Chinese at NUS.

He is serving his fifth year as chairman at Akademi Bahas 4PM, or the Malay Youth Literary Association Debate Academy. He also works with the Mendaki Professional Network to connect those interested in the legal field with lawyers, and co-founded the Muslim Legal Mentoring Network in 2024 to support aspiring legal professionals.

The aspiring lawyer told ST that he hopes to one day practise family law, especially after his parents’ divorce early in his first year of law school affected him deeply.

“Going through that experience made me realise how important it is to have compassionate and understanding legal support during difficult family transitions,” he said, adding that he wants to ensure families’ rights are protected with empathy and integrity.

“In the end, my goal is just to do as much good as I can wherever I can.”