Academic Chess
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| Formation | 1994 |
|---|---|
| Type | Elementary in-school and afterschool educational program |
| Headquarters | Laguna Hills, California |
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Region served
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California, Nevada, Utah |
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CEO
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Eric Hicks |
| Website | academicchess.com |
Academic Chess is a non-profit program founded in 1994 that teaches elementary-aged students how to play chess. It produced many United States Chess Federation-ranked players, including Nicholas Nip, a 9- year- old who in 2008 became the youngest chess master in history at age 9. Other top chess players that are graduates of Academic Chess' instruction include former national scholastic champions Kyle Shin and Alex Costello, among others. Academic Chess has taught more than 100,000 children in California, Nevada and Utah.
Academic Chess was founded by Eric Hicks, a native of Hawthorne, California and a high school dropout who discovered a talent for chess while playing the game on Santa Monica Beach. He was ranked among the top 100 players for his age group. He attended El Camino College, and later into the University of California, Berkeley. He holds a degree in English and was awarded with the Eisner Prize Award for fiction. Hicks is also an electric bicycle enthusiast, contributing articles about the subject to websites, including Boing Boing. In addition, Hicks is founder and editor of the ebike site electricbike.com and founder of California-based ebike manufacturer LunaCycle.
During his time at the college, he taught chess to young children, he was an instructor at The Berkeley School of Chess and gave particular attention inner-city youths who were most at-risk. After graduating from Berkeley, Hicks took a job writing software manuals but in his spare time he went back to teaching chess at the Las Palmas Elementary School in San Clemente. Other schools expressed interest in Hicks’ chess program and the Las Palmas Elementary School’s teachers and administration recommended his instructional methods. Hicks taught other schools in the district.
Hicks founded Academic Chess in 1994. It has taught over 500,000 students and is one of the first independent afterschool programs in California. It is in 200 California, Nevada and Utah schools during school hours and afterschool. The program operates a summer program, as well as "Friday Knight Tournaments".
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