Story of Viyugam Chess Academy
A discussion on a train journey between four friends while returning back home from a chess tournament became the reason for opening and running a successful chess academy for the last 9 years.
In 2014, after a challenging tournament in Orissa, I, Surendran and my three other chess friends Sekar, Lokesh, and Pradeep were discussing our future as chess professionals. At the time, we were only 22 years old and recent engineering graduates trying to find a way to continue pursuing our passion for chess. We needed to find a way to earn money to cover our expenses. Coming from a middle-class background, we knew it would be tough to manage the costs of training, travel, and entry fees. However, during our train journey back home, we came up with an exciting idea that changed our lives forever - opening our own professional training centre! Even though there were a handful of coaches available online then, we wanted to create a special offline experience. As all of us were rated 2200 and we knew that opening a professional training centre would be the best way to invest in our future.
I vividly remember that night, in September 2014, when we first came up with the idea of a Chess Academy - we were excited beyond words and decided to take action right away. With just a diary and a few things that needed to be done, including convincing our parents and finding the perfect location, we started our journey to turn our vision into reality. Though we faced some initial challenges, we never lost our enthusiasm and overcame every obstacle in our path. Within 10 days of discussing the idea on a train, our own chess academy came to reality and that is how Viyugam Chess Academy was born.
After six months after opening our academy, one of our founding members Pradeep left us to pursue other opportunities, but we are grateful for his support and contribution to making Viyugam a reality. Since then, we three have worked tirelessly and have trained more than 350 students in more than 10 countries, both offline and online, and produced numerous champions. It is a great honour to say that we now have three branches, and Viyugam Chess Academy has become one of the leading chess academies in India.
We owe our success to everyone who supported our vision and a special mention to my sister Janani Priya, who came up with the name "Viyugam" which means "strategy," a term heavily used in the Indian epic Mahabharatham. Looking back on our journey, I feel proud and excited about what we have achieved and cannot wait to see what the future holds for Viyugam!
