The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, by William Kamkwamba

William Kamkwamba: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
People who inventively defy our perception of the odds are impressive. With few english skills and resources, William assembled a windmill to create energy for his home. Now people use his families windmill to charge local cell phones. Here is a really touching version of William’s story told by him.

Ethan Zuckerman of the Harvard Berkman Center highlights:

It’s a story about magic and science, hunger and hardship, creativity and discovery. The story I knew – a young man whose natural engineering talent and willingness to try our ideas everyone thought was crazy – is little more than a coda to his remarkable story.

Zuckerman continues:

His portrait of hunger, its ability to drive his neighbors and himself to do things they wouldn’t have imagined, and the way it saps the energy and life of a community, is harrowing and powerful. His remarkable achievements are all the more impressive given the circumstances he and his family faced, and a testament to his parents’ wisdom and strength, as well as to his remarkable intellect.

Zuckerman concludes:

For every William who finds a path, there are thousands who don’t. Figuring out how to make it possible for remarkable invididuals, anywhere in the world, to reach their potential is one of the more difficult challenges of international development – this remarkable book makes it clear that it’s one worth tackling.

This second video is less than a minute and a short summary of his upcoming book.

In this TED talk William discusses using the windmill to power irrigation for the entire village. His passion, energy, and inventive talent is quite impressive. Our private and public funding needs to go to support the next generation of Williams in Africa and around the world.
(FYI: after the video is a commercial starting at 4:45)

You can follow William’s blog here. You can read a book excerpt and see a short interview with William and his co-author at ABC News.