Mission & History

Mission

The Chess Institute of Canada (CIC) is a charitable organization that provides opportunities for people of all ages to learn and play chess. Our specific mission is to improve the lives of children by using chess as a vehicle to cultivate the development of essential life skills.

At the Chess Institute of Canada, we bring chess to life!

The CIC offers a wide variety of programs, including:

• In-school extra-curricular chess clubs.
• Chess curriculum classes to supplement the curriculum requirements set out by the Ontario Ministry of Education.
• One-day tournaments specially designed to engage elementary school children.
• Weeklong day and overnight camps throughout the year.
• Competitive all-ages tournaments.
• Lectures and other presentations by world renowned chess players.

History

The Chess Institute of Canada (CIC) was founded in 2005 by Ted Winick, running programs in only a handful of schools in Toronto. Now in its seventh year, the CIC has expanded to schools throughout the GTA and is set to launch programs in Ottawa for the 2012-13 school year.

All CIC children’s programs are taught using the highly engaging Chess World curriculum, which was developed with two goals in mind: 1) To ensure that learning chess is accessible for everyone, and 2) To use it as a tool to help improve academic and life skills.