Cyril Junior Dim graduated in February with a degree in Computer Science obtained at Wrocław Tech’s Faculty of Computer Science and Telecommunications. In August, he won the world championship in public speaking held in Nashville, USA.

Our Zimbabwe-born graduate Cyril came to Wrocław in 2018 to start his degree programme at Wrocław University of Science and Technology. He studied Computer Science for three and a half years, played for Wrocław Tech’s basketball team, and joined the Wrocław Toastmasters – WrocLove Speakers club, which uses the premises of Wrocław Tech’s Academic Business Incubator, among other places.

Founded in 1924, the Toastmasters organisation is a world leader in training public speaking and leadership skills. With around 350,000 members, it operates in 145 countries worldwide.

Since 1939, Toastmasters has been organising world championships in public speaking for its members. Bringing together 30,000 participants, the preliminaries for the World Championship of Public Speaking start locally, in Toastmasters clubs around the world.

The best contenders go on to successive competitions at the level of area, division, and district (Poland is part of District 108, which, in addition to our country, also includes Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Russia, and Kazakhstan), and region.

The two winners from each regional level progress to the semi-finals. During the semi-finals, the jury selected eight finalists to show their skills at the final gala in Nashville. It was organised in a hybrid format, with four finalists performing online and the others on stage.

Each speech lasted between five and seven minutes. In his “speech entitled "Ndini”, which means “It's me” in Shona, our graduate told a personal story about the search for his identity and how long it took him to reach self-acceptance. – I didn't know what the result would be, but I was sure it was the best speech I’d ever written – says Cyril.

The jury felt the same way and awarded him first place in the competition. Our graduate also became the youngest world champion in the history of the competition.

– You could say I’ve been performing for almost my whole life. My mum was an actress, so even as a four-year-old I would take part in plays and appear as an extra on TV shows – says Cyril Junior Dim. – I wrote my first speech at the age of 11. Two years later, I took part in a competition where the judges were members of Toastmasters International, which is how I found out about the existence of the organisation. So, when I found out about the Wrocław club in 2018, during my first semester at Wrocław Tech, I immediately became a member.

Aged 24, Cyril Junior Dim currently lives in Wrocław and works as a software engineer. He is also a professional speaker and keynote speaker at many events around the world.