James Kang’aru Mwangi
James Kang’aru Mwangi, Kenyan chess impresario has turned a board of 64 squares into one of East Africa’s most dynamic classrooms. After becoming the continent’s youngest ever International Arbiter and FIDE Instructor while still at university, he founded Epitome School of Chess in Nairobi, determined to weave strategy and critical thinking into everyday learning. A decade on, Epitome has schooled more than 4,000 pupils, from slum-based after-school clubs to elite academies, producing multiple national and African age-group champions and seeding chess curricula in 50 primary schools. Mwangi’s whistle and stopwatch now travel widely: he has run the technical desk at continental championships from Accra to Algiers and sits on global forums that shape youth-development policy for the sport.
Accolades have followed, Forbes Africa 30 Under 30 in 2021, the Forty Under 40 Africa Achiever Award (Sports) in 2024, but Mwangi measures success in sharpened young minds, not trophies. He is rolling out a vernacular online platform to reach rural counties, lobbying the Ministry of Education to recognise chess as an examinable co-curricular subject, and mentoring a new cohort of female arbiters to balance tournament halls. His endgame is clear: make chess a universal tool for empowerment, ensuring every Kenyan child can learn to plan three moves ahead in life.