Robert Katende

Robert Katende is best known as the mentor to Phiona Mutesi in the 2016 biographical movie, Queen of Katwe. The movie is based on Tim Crothers' book, The Queen of Katwe: A Story of Life, Chess, and One Extraordinary Girl's Dream of Becoming a Grandmaster published by ESPN in 2012. Katende taught chess through the Sports Outreach Institute to Ugandan children. His goal is to empower kids through chess and to inspire a love of the game in one of the poorest slums on the planet. A chance encounter with Phiona Mutesi at age nine led to her participating in his program. Katende's pupil, Mutesi by the age of eleven won the first of three Uganda Junior Girls' Chess Championships and by age fifteen won the African National Junior Chess Open Championship title. Their story of his mentoring and her ascent as an international chess star and Grandmaster candidate has been cited as the ultimate underdog story.