IAC is pleased to announce a series of talks and receptions at the 2026 Middle & Elementary School National Championships! Our vision for Nationals is that it is not just a full slate of competitions, but also a forum for the brightest young minds in America and their families. The talks and sessions listed below help fulfill our ideal of creating a community where we all learn from each other and come away with new perspectives on competitions, educational opportunities, and chances to keep pursuing excellence.

On the Nationals Schedule (see Column AA on the right of the file), there are no fewer than 22 of these gatherings planned. Please see below for details on each of these – all are offered free of charge and do not require prior registration. All of these will take place at the Hyatt Regency Orlando; exact locations will be communicated to families prior to Nationals weekend, though most will be held in the main ballroom where the Opening Ceremonies and Awards Ceremonies take place. And if you yourself are interested in presenting in one of the sessions held for Students and Parents below (we are happy to grant one or more of these spots to teachers, other family members, and any friends of IAC), please email IAC Executive Director, David Madden at david@iacompetitions.com

Please see below for A) IAC Info Sessions  B)  Featured Speakers  C) Receptions   D) Other Talks & Presentations    E) Student and Parent Talks

IAC Info Sessions

1. 2026 International Geography Championships Info Session
By the time the 2026 National Championships arrives, we’ll be just a month and a half away from the 2026 International Geography Championships in Khao Lak, Thailand! If you’re planning on attending or thinking of joining us (remember that 2026 Nationals is the last chance to qualify!), we hope you will join us for this information session on Friday, May 22 from 10:30-11:15am, directly following National Geography Bee Block A. Come and hear about all the fun in store on the other side of the world for Competing Students and their families! If you have any questions, or if we can help clarify any of the plans, this is the perfect opportunity to get the final details you need in advance of IGC 2026.

2. 2027 International History Olympiad Info Session
The 2025 International History Olympiad in Paris with 432 Competing Students was a great success, and we’re already looking ahead to the 2027 Olympiad! Come and hear about updates on our planning, including the current state of the host site arrangements, the ideas we have for the program, and what we are looking to debut for 2027. If you have questions or comments about the Olympiad, this is the perfect opportunity to let us know. And we gladly welcome any thoughts you have, as the Olympiad program will only be finalized in the fall of 2026, so your feedback can directly influence the arrangements. This session will be held from 4:30-5:15pm on Friday, May 22 directly following National History Bee Block B.

3. IAC Community – Town Hall Meeting 1 (Program Development)
IAC is always looking to innovate: improving our current competitions and programs, and introducing new ones. Ultimately, though, all of our offerings are your opportunities, and we welcome this annual chance to share to exchange ideas and brainstorm with families, teachers, and administrators! We’ll begin by sharing our reflections on the 2025-26 competition season (what worked, what didn’t, what was just… not what we expected), and then delve into some specific aspects of our programs that may be of interest to you. Then, we want to hear your thoughts, comments, and feedback, as we look ahead to the remaining four days of Nationals, the 2026 International Geography Championships, and the 2026-27 competition season beyond. This session will run from 6:15-7:00pm on Thursday evening, immediately after the first of our two Opening Ceremonies.

4. IAC Community – Town Hall Meeting 1 Extension – Online Competitions
As an extension to our Town Hall Meeting, we’re going to specifically discuss our online competitions during the final 15 minutes from 7:00-7:15. Come and meet Leslie Hamilton-Bruewer, our Director of Online Competitions, and hear about how our online tournaments have developed and what we have in store for them in the future. We welcome your feedback as well, as we seek to continuously improve all the opportunities on offer to compete online!

5. IAC Community – Town Hall Meeting 2 (Vision & Outreach)
In this second Town Hall Meeting on Thursday evening, we want to share with you our longer-term vision for IAC, and talk about our outreach efforts. Come and meet our Outreach Staff who have spent the past year connecting with schools and families across the USA! If you have advice for our team, we’re glad to hear it! We’ll also discuss our progress with our IAC Community and IAC Foundation initiatives, as well as the first year of IAC Journeys and our expanded Model UN program offerings. If you’re unable to make the first Town Hall Meeting, you’re certainly welcome to come and ask us about our program development efforts as well. This later Town Meeting will be held immediately following the second Opening Ceremonies on Thursday evening from 9:00-9:45pm. 

6. Panel Discussion with IAC Coaches
Academic quiz competitions are expanding rapidly, and every year, with more students competing – and studying and preparing systematically – the bar is raised ever higher. Coaches are at the forefront of that development, and their experience can make all the difference between making the playoffs (or not) – or winning a national championship (or not). If you’re serious about upping your game, the coaches on our panel have decades of collective experience to share, and constitute an invaluable resource. This panel discussion will include coaches for hire, as well as school quiz bowl coaches, IAC full-time staff who have coaching experience, and teachers who lead some of the most successful IAC programs around the country. This session will take place from 3:45-4:30pm on Friday, May 22.

7. Panel Discussion with National & International Champion Students
In addition to coaches, top players can be an inspiration and a great source of strategies for success. This panel discussion will feature a number of students from elementary school through college who have won national championship and world championship titles, or medals at our world championship level events. Success in IAC events (and other academic competitions) is far more dependent on effort and effective preparation techniques than innate giftedness, so come and learn from the best! This session will take place on Friday, May 22 from 2:45-3:30pm.

Featured Speakers

8. Featured Speaker 1 – Rainforest Alliance
IAC Executive Director, David Madden, is passionate about bird (hence the ornithology exam…) and wildlife conservation and serves as an Ambassador for Environmental Education with the Rainforest Alliance. At the 2026 National Championships, a representative from the Rainforest Alliance will be on hand to share more about the important work they do in protecting rain forests around the world – and how you can help too! We’ll discuss how it’s possible to be both business friendly and environment friendly, why it’s crucial to have the support of the people who live in rain forests in order to protect them, the role of rainforests in maintaining the climate, and ideas for how students, parents, and educators can take the initiative themselves to help protect rain forests. This talk is scheduled for 9:45-10:30am on Saturday, May 23. All registration fees from the National Environmental Science Exam held later that day, and a portion of the registration fees from the Jeopardy! Charity Games benefit the Rainforest Alliance.

9. Featured Speaker 2 – TBD
More information available soon!

10. Featured Speaker 3 – TBD
More information available soon!

Receptions

11. 8th Graders Reception & Intro to IAC’s High School Programs
For 8th graders, this is your last chance to compete at IAC’s Middle & Elementary School Nationals! But there are years of competition and camaraderie ahead of you in IAC’s high school competitions, including the IAC Varsity and Junior Varsity National Championships each April in Arlington, VA! Our high school programs work slightly differently (the National History Bowl is a particular focus at the high school level; there are no Online Regional Qualifying Exams, etc.) so come learn about how you can still compete for the next four years. You can even look to become a paid staff member at our Middle and Elementary School tournaments in your area as well! We’ll spend a bit of time outlining opportunities and then give you a chance to hang out with other competitors from around the country with some soft drinks and snacks. This reception will take place on Sunday evening, May 24 and run from 8:30-9:30pm.

12. Girls Who Quiz Discussion and Reception
IAC is eager to help make quizzing more welcoming to girls. We’d love for all girls and women at Nationals to join us to hear about our ideas and to give us some feedback on what you would like to see more of in our programs. A number of girls and women who are experienced competitors or IAC staff members will be on hand to share their perspectives as well. This can also give you a chance to get to know other girls at Nationals and make friends early on in the weekend. This event will run on Friday morning, May 22 from 9:30-11:00am. Girls who are competing in the National Geography or National Mathematics Bee blocks from 9:30-10:30 are encouraged to come for the final half hour once those rounds have finished.

13. Teachers and Administrators Thank You Reception
IAC’s National Championships wouldn’t be possible without the dedication of thousands of teachers and administrators across the USA! If you are a teacher or administrator and are attending Nationals, we’d love to get to know you better and thank you for your support. We’d thus like to invite you to our annual educators reception which will run from 6:00-7:00pm on Friday, May 22 in the Rocks Bar at the Hyatt Regency Orlando with complimentary snacks, beer, wine, and soft drinks. We hope you’ll be able to join us!

Other Talks & Presentations

14. AFS Exchange Student Programs Info Session
IAC’s Executive Director David Madden spent the first six months of his senior year in high school as an AFS exchange student in Vienna, Austria. Not only were these the best six months of his life, but he credits his time overseas as helping him get into Princeton University (the Princeton Dean of Admissions at the time was quoted in the AFS brochure as saying that ideally, every applying student would have a chance to take part in such a program), acquiring complete fluency in German, building self-reliance and social skills, forming life-long friendships, and developing an appreciation for what America can learn from the wider world and what the wider world can learn from America. 30 years prior, David’s mother had also been an AFS exchange student in Brazil (and many years later is still fluent in Portuguese). The Maddens also hosted an AFS exchange student from Indonesia in 2007.
Come and learn about opportunities for students to go overseas with AFS, to open your family to a student who is eager to study in the USA, and for teachers to participate in their own specially designed travel and exchange programs as well! AFS volunteers will be at Nationals to answer your questions, hand out more information, and explain how intercultural exchanges can be a perfect complement to learning for school and IAC. This talk will take place from 7:15-7:45pm on Thursday evening, May 21.

15. Quiz Bowl Info Session
IAC’s competitions are part of the broader community of quiz bowl. Quiz bowl, generally speaking, refers to buzzer-based academic quiz competitions, usually with questions written in the short paragraph style that IAC uses with clues arranged in descending order of difficulty. Many quiz bowl competitions are team-based and feature questions, like IAC’s National Academic Bowl and National Academic Bee, on numerous different subjects. Quiz bowl is a growing activity, particularly at the middle and elementary school levels, and IAC strongly encourages all of its participants to take part in other quiz bowl competitions too! Aside from being great preparation for IAC’s events, quiz bowl competitions are lots of fun and help to build teamwork. Many IAC staff members competed in quiz bowl tournaments, and they will share their perspectives and advice as well. We’ll discuss how to get started with quiz bowl, including advice on setting up a team, finding competitions near you, and how to ensure success on the buzzer. This session will run from 12:00-12:45pm on Friday, May 22.

16. Surviving (and thriving!) through the College Admissions Process
Come and hear a panel discussion including college admissions officers, current college students, and others with an insider’s perspective on the college admissions process. While it’s often at the forefront of students’ and parents’ minds particularly as the high school years approach, the college admissions process doesn’t need to be the stress-fest that it’s often portrayed to be! We’ll discuss approaches to maximizing your chances for admission, while also broadening your horizons to consider gap years, study abroad, and hidden financial aid opportunities. IAC Executive Director David Madden, who has interviewed numerous students for Princeton University’s admissions department, and has written dozens of recommendation letters for top students in IAC’s competitions over the past 15 years, will emcee the discussion from 7:15-8:00pm on Friday, May 22 which directly preceeds Family Quiz Night.

17. TV Quiz Shows Info Session
Dozens of IAC staff have been on TV quiz shows (including the first woman to win the $1,000,000 on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and IAC Founder and Executive Director David Madden who is one of the top all time winners from Jeopardy!). Come and hear about how they found success on various TV quiz shows (also including The Floor, Trivial Pursuit, and others) and how for many of them, this was an outgrowth of having competed in academic quiz competitions while in middle and high school. We’ll also discuss how Jeopardy! led to the launch of IAC, the pros and cons of going on the Jeopardy! Teen Tournament, tips for applying to get on TV quiz shows, and tips for doing well if you get selected. This talk will run from 1:00-2:00pm on Friday, May 22.

Student and Parent Talks

18-22. We have five spaces currently reserved on the schedule for students, parents, or other attendees at the National Championships to share their expertise on a topic of their choice, though we can potentially make additional room if there is further interest. Have you written a book? Achieved distinction in a particular field? Or are just passionate about a hobby, field of study, or a particular topic, whether academic or not? Let us know, and we might be able to add you to the program!