Garry Kasparov was born on 13 April 1963 in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, ex-USSR. By the age of seven, Garry was a child chess prodigy. At nine, he had already won a semi-final of the ‘blitz’ championship for adults in Baku. In 1976, aged only 12, he achieved his first great victory thanks to his relentless work and he won the Soviet Junior Championship. He became the youngest player in the history of this competition to win such a title. In 1980, he won the World Junior Championship. On 9 November 1985 Garry became the youngest ever World Chess Champion when he beat Anatoli Karpov. This made him the 13th World Champion and he had already become the number one ranked player in the world. From December 1981 to February 1991, Kasparov made chess history by not losing a single event for nearly ten years. For eighteen years, Kasparov has held the #1 chess ranking. In 1989, he became “the first” player to top the 2800 level, a distinction he still holds today. His speeches are as dynamic as his chess. Groups of all descriptions invited him to talk on Chess, The Deep Blue matches, computing in Chess, Internet and Chess, Artificial Intelligence, and Russia, It’s Politics and Business. He is a frequent keynote speaker with choice of subjects ranging from Russian Politics Today to the Middle East, World History and Computers.