Social & Environmental Responsibility Statement

We're here to make money.

But we would like to do so in a way that leaves the place better than we found it. MegaChess allows us to do that in several ways, and we try to stay mindful of how we and our website fit into the web defined by Chief Seattle long before the internet:

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.

If you know our background, you know we're on a mission to inspire kids, to leverage their imagination, to provide alternatives to mind-numbing TV, to help grow their minds to greatness. If we make thinking fashionable among our youth, we can only imagine the wonder and achievements to follow.

In 1283, King Alphonso X the Wise of Spain commissioned a watercolor painting of a Christian monk playing chess with a Muslim Moor chieftain. King Alphonso saw chess as a natural way to extend friendships made in quiet intellectual contemplation. King Alphonso left a legacy of cultural harmony between Christian, Jew, and Moslem lasting for generations. Take a peek at our King Alphonso poster. If MegaChess can help draw people to this battlefield of the mind instead of the ones in the newspapers, we may leave a small legacy of our own to be proud of.

Teak chess sets come from Indonesia's rain forests. Coming to terms with that and developing a plan that helps those rain forests and the villagers who live among them was one of the first thing we did when we formed MegaChess. We keep it in a separate Teak and Rain Forests white paper.

We are also mindful that chess has transitioned from the game of royalty to the game of common folk. World chess champions are emerging from the third world because even poor people can afford a chess set. It doesn't wear out or go out of style, and it requires no batteries. It is how grandfathers talk to grandkids throughout the world regardless of economics. If MegaChess can be part of this web, we will honor Chief Seattle's legacy.