Social Entrepreneur Prashanth Ramachandra

Chess Without Borders celebrates 20 years of raising youth social entrepreneurs. In this age of uncertainty and divisions these youths have crossed boundaries of race, socio-economic status, religion and ethnicity to reach out to people in need. As a result, these youths have opened up a boundless stream of knowledge through deep engagement in a variety of issue around the world. The program has raised almost $187,000 for local and global charities. With endless hours of service, they have developed many skills and over 100 youth have won Presidential Awards for Service through the White House. In order to accomplish this a wide network of youth, adults and community members work together creating a pathway for many others to follow. The program has won many awards for its unique combination of education with service and philanthropy.

For Awards visit: http://shulmanchess.com/biography-of-chess-without-borders/

Many of these accomplishments were possible because of the support of the local community schools in collaboration with the local community and the US Chess Champion, GM Yury Shulman.

An example of one of our youth leaders is 16-year-old Prashanth Ramachandra, who has excelled in his quest to provide service to local and global communities since he was 12 years old! Prashanth is a gifted social entrepreneur. He has evolved into these roles over the years as a team player and an important enterprising leader. Prashanth demonstrates how social entrepreneurship develops multiple intelligences as well as vital skills such as technology, writing, publicity, marketing and collaboration.

Prashanth has gone beyond his potential to learn, inspire, lead and fund raise for local and global needs. In the process he has discovered, “the world of needs and opportunities,” said Prashanth.

Here is an excerpt of what this enterprise has meant for him:

Prashanth incorporated the knowledge of being introduced to widespread humanitarian needs as he volunteered for causes such as child trafficking, devastation from flooding and tornadoes, life in the slums, deprivation for families of prisoners, civil wars in Sri Lanka, lack of education for children of migrant and agricultural workers. “

Currently he continues to volunteer with Chess Without Borders at their various fundraisers and events. Prashanth is driven as he seizes opportunities to serve. He is also a math coach. It was a new role for him as a teacher but he worked hard donating $200 from coaching towards a roof for a school for orphans from the civil war in Sri Lanka. Prashanth is driven as he seizes opportunities to serve like playing music to Seniors at homes such as Sunrise of Barrington Senior Living. He recently worked as an election judge and contributed half of his pay towards the ex-prisoners Christmas luncheon.

In order for the program to advance the founder, Rishi Sethi, understood the importance of tournaments. Local school in the northwest suburban schools have hosted chess tournaments over the years educating and supporting the growth of youth leaders through the program. Prashanth volunteers as a tournament director helping run rated official USCF chess tournaments.

Academically, the students in the program have advanced in their chess ratings through regular tournaments. Prashanth advocates for enrolling students to learn chess by helping distribute textbooks written by GM Shulman and Rishi Sethi.As a result of this deep learning, Barrington High School chess team took 2nd place out of 128 teams participating at the Illinois State chess tournament 2 years ago.

Prashanth has won many honors and awards for his work such as:

• In 2015, he was the recipient of the Presidential Volunteer Service Award for his completion of over 100 hours of volunteer service work in his local community.

• In 2016, he was a recipient of the Points of Light Award (started by George H. W. Bush) for the group effort with Chess Without Borders and the work they do to raise funds. He was interviewed via telephone by one of the White House representatives to discuss his role in their effort.

• In 2018, he was the recipient of the Fast Company’s Innovation Award through the Margo Clark Innovation Program (under the Chess Without Borders umbrella) for creating his own company, which provides music and math education to others.

Here is a short documentary produced by the team that was entered in the Doctors Without Borders Film Festival that summarizes the diversity of humanitarian projects Prashanth contributed towards:

Prashanth will be the youth leader for the Peter Wulff School because of his outstanding leadership and commitment towards humanitarian programs. Chess Without Borders has sponsored the education of children of agricultural workers near Delhi, India. This school was named after one of our young volunteers Peter Wulff who died suddenly last year. Prashant, will lead the many other volunteers to continue to sponsor this school.

Here is a short video about Peter Wulff :

And here is a short video about the Peter Wulff School: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GQt3PBE5vM&ab_channel=KiranFrey

Mail chesswob@gmail.com with any questions about this program