William Kamkwamba's Windmill
For an inspiring story of how a young man in Malawi aged 15 built himself a power-generating windmill, which he has repeatedly upgraded, see William Kamkwamba's newly launched blog. The windmill supplies electrical power for houselights, appliances such as radios, and charging batteries.
It is important to understand that Kamkwamba, now 19, was a high school dropout only because his family could not afford the school fees after his first two trimesters. Now, thanks to publicity that began with the newspaper article pictured above, Kamkwamba has attracted financial support sufficient to get him back into secondary school after a hiatus that lasted from 2002 to 2006. (You can read the text of the Daily Times article here. The Daily Times has its editorial offices in Blantyre, Malawi's main commercial and industrial center.)
The newspaper publicity also led to an invitation to attend the 2007 TEDGlobal conference held earlier this month in Arusha, Tanzania. (TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. I wrote about the organization in an earlier post.)
What is so striking about William Kamkwamba's story is his intense motivation to learn and achieve, and the eagerness of benefactors to help him once they learned of his existence and needs.
posted by Karen Nelson @ 11:08 PM
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