Dubai: Wala Tolba, an Egyptian expatriate architect, who lives in the UAE for the past 20 years, has emerged as the champion speaker at the Toastmasters regional conference in Dubai. Representing the UAE, the mother of two will compete in the global-level contests for the world championship of public speaking to be held in Vancouver, Canada in the third week of August this year.
She won the regional championship at the District Annual Conference (DTAC 2026), hosted by the UAE-based District 127 of Toastmasters International, the world’s largest non-profit organisation for public speaking and leadership development.
The Toastmasters District 127, representing clubs in the UAE and Lebanon, hosted the DTAC 2026 under the theme “One Family, Many Voices, One Vision”, bringing togeth-er a lineup of international keynote speakers and communication leaders addressing a packed audience.
The two-day District conference concluded with contests in international speech, table topics, evaluation, and humorous speaking, featuring winners from club, area, and division levels. The regional champion of international speech contest, Wala will repre-sent District 127 at the World Championship of Public Speaking contest to be con-ducted at Vancouver Convention Centre East, alongside the Toastmasters International Convention 2026 in Vancouver, Canada from August 19 to 22, 2026.
Winners of other speech contests included Anshuman Viswanathan in the Humorous Speech category, Sathya Narayana Sairam and Karthik Singu Mahanti in the Evaluation and Table Topics contests, respectively. In the language speech contests, TM Moham-mad Basyouni was named Best Arabic Speaker, while TM Betsy Raj, TM Chandra Prabhash and TM Sivaramkrishnan won in the Hindi, Malayalam, and Tamil speech categories, respectively.
Commenting on the successful completion of the conference, DTM Sujil CV, Director of District 127, said, “We successfully hosted a world-class conference that empowered attendees with inspiration, learning, and connections that last a lifetime. It was a celebration of excellence in leadership and communication. I believe that the confer-ence provided lots of growth opportunities for members to learn, practice, collaborate, build meaningful connections and share ideas and experiences.”
“The mega event marked the culmination of the contest season, showcasing top-quality speeches and offering all participants, from competitors to learners, a platform for growth and celebration. The conference provided a great opportunity for Toastmasters in the UAE to experience the diversity of the global organisation,” he added.
In addition to the contests, the DTAC 2026 witnessed keynote sessions by the UAE’s first wheelchair-bound personal trainer and Guinness World Record holder Sujith Varghese on “Rise Beyond Imagination”; leadership coach Amena Japanwala on “Find-ing Your Voice”; former radio presenter, journalist and author Richard Dean on “Char-ismatic Leadership in the UAE”; and World Champion of Public Speaking 1995 Mark Brown on “Empowering Voices.”
DTM Sujil highlighted the scale of the Toastmasters engagements in the UAE, saying that the conference exemplified a global path to communication excellence, passionate leadership, self-motivated education, and self-developed skills for personal growth.
“District 127 is home to over 3,200 members from across 155 clubs in 37 areas, under 8 divisions in the UAE and Lebanon. Our mission is to nurture confident com-municators and inspiring leaders through self-motivated learning and skill develop-ment. We are dedicated to empowering individuals to become more effective communi-cators and leaders,” he said further.
Toastmasters International is a non-profit educational organisation that empowers individuals to become more effective communicators and leaders through a global network of clubs.
The mission of Toastmasters is to provide supportive and positive learning experiences, empowering the members to develop their communication and leadership skills, and fostering greater self-confidence and personal growth.
