Thuto Mpene

Botswana

My name is Thuto Mpene born in 2009 from Gaborone, Botswana student at Moselewapula Junior School.

I started playing chess at the age of 5 years under the influence of my parents who used to play chess on daily basis. I then started attending local tournaments until qualified for the Africa Youth chess tournament to represent my county in the under-8 open category at Port Elizabeth (2016).

That is how my journey in chess started. I also represented my country at Uganda for Africa schools where I won gold medal in the under 11 years open section (2019). I have been playing for the youth National team for the past 7 years and winning a lot of gold medals from different countries. Recently (2022), I was selected to play online under 14 World championship in which I scored 6/11 points. My hobbies are playing chess and playing football.

I joined Smiling Pawn Group in 2022, happy to become part of an international chess project.