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Meet the African tech startups that are supporting Chess in Slums Africa

These African tech startups are supporting Chess in Slums Africa to empower children in impoverished communities in Africa.

Meet the African tech startups that are supporting Chess in Slums Africa
Startups supporting Chess in Slum Africa

These African tech startups are supporting the Chess in Slums Africa.

In recent times, Chess in Slums Africa has continued to trend on Twitter for its impact in underserved communities in Nigeria, and as they have previously done, these companies have continued to partner with the initiative to enable its objectives.

Founded by Tunde Onakoya in 2018, Chess in Slums Africa is “reimagining education using chess as a tool and a framework to aid cognition and empower the minds of children in impoverished communities.”

Chess is a classic game of strategy, invented more than 1500 years ago in India. Legend has it that the ruler of India asked his wise men to devise a way to teach the children of the royal family to become better thinkers and better generals on the battlefield. Chess was the result. The stereotype of the chess player is someone who is smart, logical and good at mathematics.

Last December, the initiative garnered more global attention when a tweet about its chess contest for over 51 homeless children living under the bridge in Oshodi, a hustling and bustling area in Lagos, Nigeria went viral.

This led to increased coverage about the initiative on local and international media and support from various individuals and organizations. The Nigerian tech community was not left out. Prior to the Chess in the Slums viral tweet, startups within the ecosystem have constantly shown support to social causes in the country, from the COVID-19 pandemic to the nationwide #EndSARS protest.

I curated a listicle of some of the publicly announced partnerships between Nigerian tech startups and the Chess in the Slums Africa.

Kids That Code NG
Last month, Kids That Code (KTC) announced a partnership with Chess In Slums Africa to help rehabilitated teenagers find life-changing opportunities by unlocking their innate potentials through coding skills.

GetEquity and Venture Garden Group (VGG)
To enable the partnership between CISA and KTC, GetEquity and Venture Garden Group provided donations to power the 5-week intensive coding camp.

Lazerpay Finance
Lazerpay Finance, a Nigerian blockchain startup is enabling the Chess in the Slums Africa to receive donations in cryptocurrency. “With Lazerpay’s new Donations feature, ChessInSlums will be able to seamlessly receive donations in crypto stablecoins like USDT, USDC, BUSD and DAI from anywhere in the world and receive payouts in any chosen fiat currency,” Lazerpay stated.

Chipper Cash
“We're pleased to announce the global partnership between Chipper Cash and Chess in Slums to further support Tunde Onakoya’s vision of Changing Lives through Chess and giving hope to less privileged kids.” the African unicorn tweeted.

Even though the details of the partnership were not disclosed, Chipper Cash stated that it will collaborate with the chess-led initiative to host “impactful events”.

Bumpa
Through a partnership with Bumpa, a Nigerian e-commerce startup, Chess in Slums has launched an e-store to sell merchandise as part of fundraising.

Risevest
In January, Risevest raised 1.3 million Naira for Chess in Slums through ticket proceeds from the Moneyrise Conference. The fintech startup had announced that all the proceeds will be donated to the initiative.

Piggyvest
Nigerian fintech startup, Piggyvest has signed a “long term partnership” with Chess in the Slums to serve as one of the major financial sponsors of the initiative's annual tournaments and expansion into more impoverished communities.

Crevatal
Crevatal is a Blockchain creative agency focused on creating user-friendly designs and products for the Web3 ecosystem. Even though it has been listed on the Chess in Slums’ website as a partner, the full details of the partnership were not disclosed.

Shuttlers
Shuttlers, a Nigerian mobility startup provided its buses to enable transportation of the CISA beneficiaries during one of their activities.

Aside from these startups, other African tech founders including Olugbenga 'GB' Agboola, co-founder and the CEO of Flutterwave; Sultan Akintade, co-founder of AltSchool Africa have supported the initiative.

Ingressive 4 Good
In May 2022, I4G kickstarts a "long term partnership" with CIS following an initial donation of 10 laptops has enabled beneficiaries of the CIS academy engage the use of technology to learn to code and also take Chess e-lessons from top mentors at Chessable.

Recently, Google made a contribution towards I4G’s fundraising goal of $1M-$2M and multiplied Ingressive for Good’s ability to reach more African youth by donating $250,000.

Norebase

Norebase, is a Nigerian tradetech startup that is building Africa’s company and trademark platform. Tunde disclosed that Norebase helped CIS to register the "Chess in Slums Africa" trademark for free.

The startup recently raised a $1 million pre-seed to facilitate its platform to enable businesses to start, scale and operate across Africa and the United States of America.

Why is Chess in Slums raising $1 million?

According to the chess-led educational initiative, the funds will be used to:

  • Build a Chess academy
  • Sponsor 1000 children from slums on full-ride educational scholarships
  • Extend the project to 10 slum communities
  • Reach 5000 children

You can make a donation and also become a partner via their website

Editor’s Note:

  • As of press time, we were yet to receive a response from Chess in Slums to our mail requesting the list of African tech startups partnering with the initiative. However, we will update the list as new announcements will be made.
  • This article was updated on the 5th of April 2022, following Ingressive 4 Good's partnership announcement.
  • Update, 9th May: Norebase was added to the list.



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