First, I’m unbelievable, then, I become the blueprint.” — Ayotangomango “

I have been around the block for a while. I have been a pro-tournament player, playing under bright tournament lights, and the chess clocks ticking like a second heartbeat. I have felt the thrill of victory, with many tournament wins, and I have also felt the harshness and the plunge of losses. I have coached many students, and I have watched them win tournaments. I have managed projects that are fast becoming unicorns, as well as projects that failed.

I have been around for a while.

You see, I’ve wandered far and done much, yet I haven’t pursued the one thing that truly stirs my soul, a hum that rhymes in lockstep to the beating of my heart.

This is what ChessNCode is to me. It’s a nudge, a call for me to dare once again, to forget what doubt is, to begin without the assurance of clarity, to apply myself, and to be me again.

For you, ChessNCode may be more, but simply, it’s a call to practice, to learn by doing, not just by thinking.

I’ll tell you more…

ChessNCode: The Vision

ChessNcode: etymology– Chess and Coding, it’s that simple. The idea is to integrate chess and coding as tools to empower women and girls.

Our goal is clear: to empower 1 million girls and women by 2035. We achieve this through a powerful, integrated methodology encompassing chess, coding (digital literacy), mentorship, and media, with The Scholar Project serving as our launchpad for global scale. While ChessNCode currently prioritizes women and girls, our long-term vision is to open the program to all interested groups soon.

What We’re Building

ChessNCode is unique; we aren’t just a nonprofit or a startup, we are:

• A business with revenue potential through education, mentorship, and digital services
• A social impact engine, addressing access and representation
• A distribution network designed for massive global growth and potential to be a unicorn. We leverage local ecosystems, digital platforms, and community leaders to scale globally

We are solving real problems in the spaces where many fail to tread, emphasizing the role of women and girls in the future; they mustn’t be sidelined.

When you solve real problems that matter to people, you build trust. That trust creates loyal customers and natural growth.

The Mastermind Behind ChessNCode

I’m Abimbola Ayo Osunfuyi, founder of ChessNcode.

I am also the Project Manager for Promoting Queens, a leading global nonprofit where we use chess to empower girls and women. For the past two and a half years, I’ve been collaborating with the Promoting Queen’s team to build from the ground up, gaining deep insight into the importance of matching the right solutions to the right challenges. I am him, the industry machine.

Our vision at ChessNCode is bold and ambitious, yes, I know. But it’s not just merely the infusion of coding into chess lessons; it’s about discovering extraordinary people and investing in them — mentors, learners, leaders, and builders alike.

ChessNcode is more than a startup; it’s an ecosystem, a movement, and a platform where talent meets opportunity, impact flourishes, and women and girls don’t just play the game — they change it, and they win it.

I believe that true empowerment happens when challenges are met with the right solutions. I am building the foundation of a movement that bridges education, identity, and opportunity through storytelling and skill development.

This emerging network connects individuals, scholars, mentors, chess players, and tech enthusiasts into a vibrant, collaborative community. The real strength lies not just in individual parts but in their interactions, shared culture, knowledge exchange, and meaningful partnerships.

Whether ChessNcode grows into a billion-dollar business or not, the guaranteed outcome is lasting social impact, and that is a future worth building.

Real empowerment begins when girls receive structured support, mentorship, scaffolding, and clear pathways that help them grow and thrive.

Why ChessNCode? The Problem

Despite reasonable strides, gender inequality remains a persistent global challenge. According to recent United Nations data, over 2 billion women and girls worldwide continue to face systemic barriers, and these inequalities are unlikely to be fully resolved by 2035. The obstacles are deeply entrenched and multifaceted:

• Unequal access to education: there remains a huge gap in education. 122 million girls are still out of school globally, and many more are unable to complete secondary school.
• Financial independence: 80% of women entrepreneurs struggle to get credit, and many still lack access to basic banking.
• Digital inclusion: In low-income countries, an alarming 9 out of 10 adolescent girls and young women lack reliable internet access or even devices.

Moreover, safety concerns online and offline continue to restrict opportunities for girls and women everywhere.

These systemic inequalities create an uneven playing field, blocking millions of women and girls from accessing opportunities and achieving true empowerment.

We are now living in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, an incredible moment in time where the boundaries of the physical, digital, and biological worlds are becoming somewhat blurred.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is quickly reshaping how we work and live. But here’s the key: The more powerful AI becomes, the more essential our human qualities will be. Things like empathy, creativity, and emotional intelligence will become priceless. Likewise, our physical communities, the cities and neighborhoods where we connect face-to-face, will only grow in importance. This is what we are about, preaching the essence of community whilst blending finely with technological trends.

The ChessNCode Solution: Coordinated and Clever

Let tactics become strategy — Sam Altman

ChessNCode looks to nurture the natural strengths of women and girls, equipping them to exude emotional intelligence, competence, and continuous learning, helping them refine the human edge needed to thrive in an AI-driven world.

If the core challenge we’re addressing is financial risk and reward, then simply building products isn’t enough. The real solution lies in creating a coordinated system — one that aligns people, skills, resources, and opportunities. The most successful businesses don’t just build things; they solve coordination problems. They connect the right people to the right platforms at the right time.

At ChessNCode, we’re doing exactly that:

• Distilling a big vision into small, actionable parts
• Building a model that’s scalable, replicable, and locally relevant
• Moving from idea to impact by executing with focus and strategy.

We want to tell the stories, we want to design systems where talent meets opportunity, and where empowerment becomes a structured, ongoing pathway.

Real Stories & Impact

You never lose a dream; it just incubates as a hobby.” — Larry Page

I have found this quote to be true. That side project you think nothing of, or that quiet moment of lending a hand to help someone, can end up being the beginning of something far bigger than you know.

Join me as I flip into the pages of memory…

Back in 2018, I was, and continue to be known as “the young grandmaster”, not by title, but by virtue of foresight. I was deeply immersed in the game, ruthless in my calculations, and focused solely on my own chess career.

Then came a young woman, a Mechanical Engineering student, who asked, “Can you coach me?” But I wasn’t a coach, I was a fierce tournament player, and coaching was not my forte. But she was persistent, she didn’t give up on pestering me, she wanted to be the best!

So, I agreed to coach her. I bet on her potential.

We set high goals. We planned for her to become Nigeria’s top female player, earn her first title, and then aim for the Woman Grandmaster title. She climbed fast with her grit, but I provided the right scaffolding, mentorship, structure, and safety.

That same year, she won two silver medals at the Abuja National Sports Festival. By 2021, she was Nigeria’s most valuable female player, having earned three gold medals at the National Sports Festival in Edo State and finishing as runner-up at the national championship. In 2022, she earned the Woman Candidate Master (WCM) title at the Chennai Chess Olympiad.

Looks like she was achieving it all too fast, but then came the familiar question: “What next?”

Chess alone couldn’t sustain her fire, so she pivoted to tech. Today, she’s a software engineer, still guided by the same discipline and strategy that defined her chess journey.

She became ChessNCode’s first unofficial scholar. She showed up, she committed, and she delivered. It was a full-circle moment.

Her story is pivotal to the foundation of ChessNCode.

The Problem Behind the Success

Her story wasn’t the only one.

As time went on, I coached more young women, and the same pattern reoccurred. They trained hard, and they succeeded, but beyond the chessboard, a common barrier stood in their way: Chess offered them visibility and prestige, but it didn’t give them a clear roadmap for professional sustainability.

And I’ll admit, I didn’t think much of it at first. I was still in the chess zones, focused on solid preparation and winning tournaments. But now, I’ve changed, I’m no longer just a player or coach, I’m a builder and a fixer. I don’t just want to celebrate talent anymore; I want to solve the gap.

It’s not a question of potential; it’s a question of what’s missing after potential is proven.

How do we go from brilliance to breakthrough?

How do we turn medals into momentum, and titles into tech careers?

These are the questions that birthed ChessNCode. We exist to build the essential platform and pipeline that proves what is possible when strategic thinking (chess) is combined with the essential pillars of coding, mentorship, and direct real-world access.

We are creating an ecosystem where chess becomes the opening move and code becomes the endgame. And we’re doing this for the next million girls and women, but it starts with one girl.

The concept of Blue and the Blueprint

Blue has no dimensions; it is beyond dimensions. — Yves Klein

At the very heart of ChessNCode lies the essence of the color, blue. Think of it as the color of a boundless sky or the deepest ocean, a reflection of the endless possibilities waiting for women and girls. We pair the strategic, timeless nature of chess with the technical mastery of coding. The future is undeniably bright! And blue is the visual essence of that unlimited potential.

We are not dependent on already skewed narratives, nor are we intellectualizing actions and ventures; we are impact-driven, driving real results and prioritizing the power of our own stories.

In chess, blue conceptually connotes the balance between strategy and intuition. In coding, it’s the space where logic meets imagination. Blue has taught me to live in the in-between moments. Blue is also the color of quiet dreams waiting to bloom. It’s the calm before a breakthrough, the silence before the next move, where ambition and patience meet. Overthinkers debate what blue means.

And hey, we are not smurfs!

We are shipping moves and codes out of the premeditated blue, adding more adornments to our girls and women, an immediate allure, much like the striking appearance of blue eyes. ChessNCode invites you to dare with us and explore deeply the realms of endless possibilities.

Do we have a prototype?

“Nothing can be done both hastily and safely — almost nothing.” — Publilius Syrus

We are strongly avoiding the paralysis of analysis; we keep motion steady, albeit slowly, but surely.

ChessNCode is already running a beta called the First Scholar program. This program tests the waters with a real-life simulation of what we hope to do at ChessNCode.

Meet Elora, Our First Scholar

Elora is a 23-year-old French graduate from the University of Benin, Nigeria. She is also a chess player, and now, with ChessNCode, she aspires to be a Machine Learning Engineer.

Through the ChessNCode beta initiative, Elora will be immersed in a personalized learning environment. Her progress will be tracked as she receives hands-on training in Chess and Machine Learning, backed by individualized mentorship in both disciplines. Keep an eye out for Elora’s story on YouTube.

For the first year, from September 2025 to September 2026, ChessNCode will focus on one scholar (Elora). This targeted approach will allow us to gather essential feedback and actionable insights necessary for refinement. We will then expand to include 10 scholars by the end of 2026, with the cohort size steadily increasing as we scale toward our 2035 commitment.

Some key problems we are solving:

• Access and Pathways: Many talented young women in chess and other disciplines often lack a clear, structured pipeline for entry into tech, AI, and coding careers.
• Identity and Mentorship: Existing programs often stop at teaching basic skills, failing to build the necessary foundation of resilience, confidence, and community support essential for long-term success.
• Representation and Scale: There’s a systemic underrepresentation of girls and women in AI/Tech. By leveraging chess — a proven tool for cognitive development and visibility, we are creating a scalable model for deep inclusion and opportunity.

ChessNCode will focus on creating undeniable value for the vast community of girls and women, then find solid distribution plans to get us to the right people, which is crucial for achieving a market fit, and only then can we focus on building a robust and scalable revenue model.

I’ll keep documenting and modeling with cost per impact in mind.

In my mind, this is only a win-win. Our ultimate success is defined by impact; even if ChessNCode does not reach its full scale, we would have successfully empowered a couple of women/girls into fruitful careers.

Can my ideas be stolen?

The strength of the dream is in the spirit of the dreamer.

An idea does not survive because it is better than the competition’s, but rather because the person who holds it survives.

ChessNCode sits at the unique intersection of chess, coding, AI, and women’s empowerment. Not many can see this opportunity, and fewer still dare to build it. I do.

Relax, Thanos. I’m just being my usual Doctor Strange self.

I’ll keep gathering my Avengers. If ChessNCode moves you to build your own vision, then the mission is already working.

Principles of ChessNCode

“Invest in preparedness, not predictions.” — Nassim Taleb

Within the core of ChessNCode are the following values, without which our existence will be obsolete.

Domain Dependence

At ChessNCode, we build scaffolds for growth. We pair learners with mentors, and design platforms where real people, not videos or algorithms, help others unlock their potential. We take teaching and upskilling a nudge higher. No focus on IQ or academic excellence, rather, we prioritize creativity, leadership, and community.

Deep domain expertise creates stronger businesses, better learners, and more resilient communities. For ChessNCode, it’s the foundation for changing millions of lives and generating long-term social and economic value.

We move beyond theory: Elora and the million women we aim to serve would be equipped with hands-on experience and mentorship to thrive in the AI-powered world.

Doxastic Commitment

A doxastic commitment is more than a belief you say out loud. It’s a belief you consistently act on, whether explicitly or implicitly. It’s what your behavior, decisions, and assumptions prove you truly stand for.

If I claim, “Everyone can learn to code,” but never create space for beginners, my actions betray my commitment to the idea.

At ChessNCode, we don’t just talk about empowerment, we design systems that embody it. We talk the talk, we walk the walk.

The Principle of Subsidiarity

Decisions and actions should be made at the most local and competent level possible — closest to the people directly impacted.

What this means for ChessNCode:

• We don’t centralize what can be done better at the grassroots.
• Higher levels exist to support, not override or disempower, local efforts.
• We prioritize agency, local decision-making, and self-determination.

These principles guide us and are the very ideas with which we started our beta program.

The student is clever, but the teacher hires the band — Yiddish proverb

ChessNCode exists at the intersection of equity, learning, and empowerment, and subsidiarity allows us to meet learners where they are, not where the system expects them to be.

Elora’s story is a perfect example. She’s co-creating her path through chess, coding, and mentorship. She’s an active participant, not a passive recipient. We offer opportunities, not handouts.

ChessNCode’s Competitive Moat

ChessNCode is fundamentally driven by expertise and competence across both disciplines.

On the Chess front, our resources are robust. As an active FIDE Master and tournament player, I provide deep subject-matter expertise, and I maintain the essential network of top coaches required to effectively instill strategic thinking in our girls.

For Coding, we have assembled a team of exceptional technical experts with current, specialized experience in the world of technology.

ChessNCode is positioned to:

• Reach 1 million girls and women by 2035, and equip them in chess expertise and coding.
• Become the go-to platform for empowerment through chess and coding
• Unlock multiple revenue streams through education, mentorship, and payments
• Partner with governments, global funders, and corporations to drive measurable impact.

We’re scaling depth, and that’s what gives us staying power.

You may be wondering if there is a possible market fit for ChessNCode.

Yes! There is a massive, underserved global need for inclusive, mentorship-based, and scalable models that combine chess and coding. The demand grows increasingly when you look at the:

• Gender gap in STEM and leadership
• Importance of EQ, creativity, and problem-solving in the 21st century
• Need for hybrid learning models that account for unequal digital access

ChessNCode sits uniquely at this intersection, delivering real skills, community empowerment, and impact on a large scale.

The ChessNCode Ecosystem

Bigger than a platform is an ecosystem; we have a network of purpose-aligned players, resources, and systems working towards the shared goal of women’s empowerment.

Here’s a breakdown of the key players and partners of the ChessNCode ecosystem:

• Learners: Girls, women, and young people building chess and coding skills
• Mentors & Coaches: Chess experts, coders, peer guides
• Community Hubs: Schools, libraries, NGOs, youth centers, tech hubs
• Funders & Investors: Impact funds, CSR initiatives, governments, philanthropists
• Tech Providers: Learning platforms, AI tools, mobile infrastructure
• Employers & Internship Hosts: Tech firms, startups, and social enterprises
• Policy Makers: Education, workforce, and digital inclusion leaders.

Each of these actors plays a unique role in how we scale sustainably and contextually.

Real intelligence reveals itself through action, not explanation.

Some of the most brilliant people I’ve worked with aren’t great talkers, they’re builders, creators, problem-solvers.

We are currently in beta with the first scholar program, and this is primarily because we believe that real thinking is not wrapped in fancy words, but in quiet execution, in the silent strategy of a chess game or a perfectly written line of code.

That’s what ChessNCode is here for: to create a space where girls, women, and underrepresented youth can learn by doing, think through building, and grow through impact.

Less talk, more movement, just like in chess.

Learn more about ChessNCode on X.