Garry Kasparov, the Russian pro-democracy leader, human rights activist, author and former world chess champion, will deliver the 2022–23 Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture on Monday, March 6, at 4:30 p.m. at UCLA Anderson School of Management’s Korn Convocation Hall.
The lecture is sponsored by the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations and co-sponsored by the Daniel Pearl Foundation and Hillel at UCLA. The event is free, but reservations are required through the website.
Kasparov came to international attention in 1985, at age 22, when he became the youngest world chess champion in history. Famous for his long rivalry with Anatoly Karpov, he also competed against the IBM super-computer Deep Blue in a series of 1996–97 matches that were key to bringing artificial intelligence, and chess, into the mainstream.
After retiring from professional chess in 2005, Kasparov joined the vanguard of the Russian pro-democracy movement. In 2012, he was named chairman of the New York–based Human Rights Foundation, succeeding Vaclav Havel. Facing imminent arrest during Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on political opponents, Kasparov moved from Moscow to New York City in 2013.
Kasparov has been a contributing editor at the Wall Street Journal since 1991 and is a regular commentator on politics and human rights, as well as technology. In addition to a series of books on chess, he is the author of 2015’s “Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped,” which blends history, memoir and an analysis of current events.
In sponsoring the Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture Series, the Burkle Center celebrates the memory of Daniel Pearl as a prominent journalist who dedicated his life to bringing joy and understanding to the world. Past presenters have included David Remnick of the New Yorker, Christopher Hitchens, CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Daniel Schorr of NPR and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
