William Kamkwamba

William Kamkwamba
Kamkwamba at TED in 2007
Born	(1987-08-05) August 5, 1987 (age 29) Dowa, Malawi
Nationality	Malawi
Education	Dartmouth College
Occupation	Inventor

William Kamkwamba (born August 5, 1987) is a Malawian innovator, engineer and author. He gained fame in his country when, in 2002, he built a wind turbine to power a few electrical appliances in his family's house in Wimbe (32 kilometres (20 mi) east of Kasungu) using blue gum trees, bicycle parts, and materials collected in a local scrapyard. Since then, he has built a solar-powered water pump that supplies the first drinking water in his village and two other wind turbines (the tallest standing at 12 meters (39 ft)) and is planning two more, including one in Lilongwe, the political capital of Malawi.

William was born in a family of relative poverty and relied primarily on farming to survive. According to his autobiography, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, his father had been a rough fighting man who changed after becoming a Christian. A crippling famine forced Kamkwamba to drop out of school, and he was not able to return to school because his family was unable to afford the tuition fee. In a desperate attempt to retain his education, Kamkwamba began to frequently visit the school library. It was there that Kamkwamba discovered his true love for electronics. Before, he had once set up a small business repairing his village's radios, but his work with the radios had not earned much money.

Kamkwamba, after reading a book called Using Energy, decided to create a makeshift wind turbine. He experimented with a small model using a cheap dynamo and eventually made a functioning wind turbine that powered some electrical appliances in his family's house. Local farmers and journalists investigated the spinning device and Kamkwamba's fame in international news skyrocketed. A blog about his accomplishments was written on Hacktivate and Kamkwamba took part in the first event celebrating his particular type of ingenuity called Maker Faire Africa, in Ghana in August 2009.

When The Daily Times in Blantyre, the commercial capital, wrote a story on Kamkwamba's wind turbine in November 2006, the story circulated through the blogosphere, and TED conference director Emeka Okafor invited Kamkwamba to talk at TEDGlobal 2007 in Arusha, Tanzania as a guest. His speech moved the audience, and several venture capitalists at the conference pledged to help finance his secondary education. His story was covered by Sarah Childress for The Wall Street Journal. He became a student at African Bible College Christian Academy in Lilongwe. He then went on to receive a scholarship to the African Leadership Academy and in 2014 graduated from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.