A 16-year-old Mongolian student has won a coveted public speaking prize, beating contestants from over 30 countries and regions across the globe.

On 12 May, The English Speaking Union’s International Public Speaking Competition’s grand final took place following 12 heats. The event saw six finalists compete for the overall title.

Egsheglen Javkhlan from Mongolia, one of the youngest competitors, took the top prize.

“I’ve learned so much,” Egsheglen said after she won the top gong. “I feel like if the whole world could learn about as many cultures as we have this week, we could get rid of so much of the tension between countries. I travelled to London, but I feel like I’ve travelled to 30 different countries,” she continued.

Each competitor in the final was asked to tackle the concept: “relations between nations are too important to be left to governments alone”.

The contest, which began in 1989, was held at the Royal Institution in London, with hundreds also watching on a livestream.

Judge and director of TedXLondon Maryam Pashar said of Javkhlan that learning such skills at “this age puts you in such a good position for the rest of your life. To have confidence in how to construct an argument, how to tell stories, how to interact with an audience, and how to feel grounded in your delivery, is always going to be an asset going forward. This competition allows participants to realise that there are people from halfway around the world who they may have more in common with than someone who’s in the same class as them at home – you start to see all the richness of difference and diversity, and how valuable that is,” Pashar explained.

The ESU provides grants to help widen participation in the competition as part of its mission. Both the countries from which the winner and runner-up hailed received a grant this year.

Mongolia’s delegation used the grant for rural community engagement while Romania used its grant for teachers’ continual professional development.