The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
When famine struck Malawi in 2001, William Kamkwamba’s family could barely afford food let alone to send their son to school, so at 14 William was forced to drop out. rather than give up learning, he decided to spend his days at the village library, where a book titled “Using Energy” introduced him to the windmill. In the country where only about 2% of the population have access to electricity, William wondered if he could build one to light his family’s home. With no money or professional materials, he searched scrapyards and built a turbine out of a broken bicycle, a tractor fan, plastic pipes, bamboo and wire. This rudimentary turbine powered four lights with homemade switches and a circuit breaker fashioned from nails and wire. Before long neighbors were walking to his families’s compound to charge their phones and he built a second windmill to irrigate the crops.
As word of his invention traveled, it carried him far beyond his local village: allowing him to write a bestselling memoir, “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind” which was later adapted by Netflix into a film. Today, William is working on the Moving Windmills Project, which aims to bring young innovators together to solve even more issues. His advice to them is simple: the obstacles are real, but anything is possible if you stay focused on your goal. William never waited for the right resources or moment to arrive, he simply took action and used what he had to help himself and those around him. So, what can we do if we take Williams advice?
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This is really good. I like how you went into detail of how he used the most basic tools around him to create something that could sustain a whole family. Even though he may have not like the idea of creating a windmill, he was forced to be interested because of his position.
Talk about a lean approach! William scraping together what he could to engineer a turbine is a prime example of how innovation starts with smaller steps than we think. Sometimes the solution is in the reconstructing of what’s already around us.
I love the inspirational story of a young boy innovating out of what he could find in the junkyard. It truly exemplifies human ingenuity. It reminds me of the incubators made out of auto parts – people using what they can to create great things.
This is a great story! It is so cool that he dropped out of school but was still able to invent a machine that powered electricity. He not only did it from reading a book but with the scraps he was able to find around his house. Which is just truly an amazing thing and it shows it you put your mind to it you can do anything.
I love how this demonstrates another example similar to what we talked about with the neonurture device. He used his entrepreneurial thinking to use parts from around his house which is exactly like the car parts for the incubators. I also like you emphasis on the fact that he decided to take action early which helped him out severely in the long run.
William’s entrepreneurial journey is an incredible story of creating something new out of minimal, and raw existing materials. He demonstrates to those around him that you can simply start with the things around you, and with time, outside input and patience it will grow into something of value.