MPI History
MPI Education Inc., previously known as the “Modus Ponens Institute”, is a collaboration between two long-time friends and colleagues, Zach Bloom and Archie Stapleton. It has a number of arms, but operates from a single, simple objective: to improve public discourse and education through philosophy, ethics, and dialogue.
Zach and Archie met on the first day of university in 2016, and since then, completed undergraduate honours degrees in Philosophy, and received masters degrees in Philosophy and Theology from the University of British Columbia and the Harvard Divinity School respectively. Both have taught and participated in competitive debate for over a decade, and in September 2024, incorporated to create the Modus Ponens Institute.
Since its founding in 2024, MPI has developed expertise in two key areas: (1) managing and teaching philosophy and debate classes, and (2) running international, online ethics and debate competitions for students around the world, which MPI does in partnership with the Arizona based technology/ethics non profit TKE.
The three tournaments that MPI focuses on are:
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The Ethics Olympiad.
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The TKEthics Invitational
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The Global AI Debates.
Olympiads
The Olympiad began in Australia in 2014, when Archie’s high school Philosophy teacher brought a tried and tested competition called the National High School Ethics Bowl to Australia. Archie was in the first ever Australian Ethics Olympiad team. MPI, through a licensing agreement with the founder of the competition, Matthew Wills, now runs the qualifying rounds of this International competition for the Americas and Europe. In total, across all Olympiads in 2025, over 800 schools competed for positions in the final. MPI has had over 60 individual teams (around 240 students) take part in their branch of the event, and teams from their division have won or taken second place in the International final multiple times since its founding.
The event format and example rounds can be found here. The competition invites teams of 3-5 students from schools to study 8 ethical cases in the months leading up to the competition. When they arrive, they are put into a breakout room, where there are two teams and a judge/moderator, who has at minimum an undergraduate degree in Philosophy, and more often than not a PhD or Professorship, and other speech/debate experience. We pride ourselves on having extremely competent, qualified judges who give extensive oral and written feedback after each heat. Team A must present for 5 minutes on a question they are given in the room, team B responds for 3, team A replies, then the judge gives 7 minutes of judges questions to team A, probing them to bring out the most interesting philosophical issues they may have missed. The teams then switch roles, get a new case and question, and the format repeats.
The winning team is the one that makes the best, most circumspect, and well formatted arguments.
MPI is hosting three Olympiad events this Spring:
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2026 Senior European Ethics Olympiad (March 26, 2026): Invitation
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2026 Senior American Ethics Olympiad (April 4, 2026): Invitation
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2026 Senior Canadian Ethics Olympiad (April 11, 2026): Invitation
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TKEthics Invitationals
The TKEthics Invitational is another spin-off from the Ethics Bowl, and does not differ in format or judging from the Olympiad. However, it does differ in content and team formation requirements. While the Olympiad requires school based teams, the Invitational is open to any teams from anywhere in the world, in any formation. Students from private debate academies, national debate teams, or friends across continents may all participate. Furthermore, it focuses on topics in Artificial Intelligence and technology more heavily than the Olympiad. It has run 3 times, and has had over 40 teams (around 160 students) from China, the USA, Canada, and New Zealand compete. This leads to an International final for the top teams.
The coming event in the Spring is the 2026 TKEthics Spring Invitational (February 28, 2026): Invitation.
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Global AI Debates
Finally, the Global AI Debates. This is a new competition which specifically targets questions of Artificial Intelligence and ethics. Students can either submit a speech or an essay on one of the prescribed topics. We then invite top judges from Universities, think tanks, AI safety groups, and tech firms to judge the submissions. The top students in the speech category come to a final, and deliver them live. The top essayists, in teams of 2, join a live debate competition where they may have to defend either side of the case. We have had over 75 individual entries over the two competitions we have run, representing around 100 students. We hope to double that this year– which is where, as we explain below, we think ITN might play a role.
The next competition is the 2026 Spring Global AI Debates: (April 15, 2026): Invitation
Topics:
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Primary School Speech (ages 7 — 10): Schools should use AI Teachers. (5 minute speech)
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Middle School Speech (ages 11 — 13): AI will be bad for the media ecosystem. (7 minute speech)
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High School Speech (ages 14 — 18): We support the Future of Life Institute Statement on superintelligence. (7 minute speech)
Essay and Debate (any age): We support the Future of Life Institute Statement on superintelligence. (1500 word essay on either the Pro or the Con of the topic)