A windmill to blow your mind...

I came across this fantastic story of a young high school student in Malawi who invented a windmill- and just seems to have the most positive and powerful attitude to learning. I just have to share;


http://williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/

Riding high ... William Kamkwamba atop his windmill, which uses a bicycle to increase efficiency


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An article posted on his blog;

William Kamkwamba, a 19-year-old high school student, first saw the internet at a TEDGlobal conference last month in Arusha, Tanzania. He was invited to the event - which aims to promote an exchange of ideas in the fields of technology, entertainment and design - after Malawi's Daily Times newspaper covered his efforts to generate electricity for his parents' farm by building a windmill of his own design.

The windmill is remarkable because Kamkwamba left school at 14 as his family was unable to pay the school fees. Armed only with his intelligence, a book on electricity, some plastic piping and found objects, Kamkwamba built his first windmill, which generated enough power to run a light in his room.

His second, larger windmill uses a bicycle to increase efficiency and was able to generate power for his parents' house and charge car batteries or mobile phones for people in his village.

As news of Kamkwamba's achievements spread, he was invited to the second biannual TEDGlobal conference, where his three-minute presentation about the windmill won him a standing ovation from delegates.

While at the conference, the young Malawian saw the internet for the first time and within hours began Google-searching for "windmill" and "solar energy" and was amazed with how many hits were returned for each search.

Kamkwamba was particularly impressed with the speed at which he could achieve things using the internet. "I was very excited when I saw the internet for the first time," he said. "The internet makes transfer of information very instant."

Back in Malawi, Kamkwamba applied his new knowledge about wind-powered electricity to a redesign of his second windmill, a process he detailed on the blog William Kamkwamba's Malawi Windmill (williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/williamkamkwamba), which offers step-by-step blog photos of the construction process.

The blog has since attracted global interest, with a Google search for Kamkwamba's name already generating more than 20,000 results, just a few weeks after his story became known outside Malawi.

A fellow African blogger and new friend of Kamkwamba, Soyapi Mumba, described his first impression of Kamkwamba: "What I like about William is that he didn't join the multitude of people just blaming government or policy makers for his lack of education. Neither did he point fingers at statutory corporations for the lack of electricity in his home. He didn't just sit down and blame his parents for all this, either."

Andrew Heavens, a journalist based in Khartoum, Sudan, says Kamkwamba belongs to the "cheetah" generation of Africans who are not going to wait for government and aid organisations to do things for them.

While Kamkwamba is certainly a cheetah, the migration from remote Malawian village to the global stage of cyberspace has not been achieved alone. He was assisted by US-based Tom Rielly, director of partnerships at TED and Kamkwamba's mentor. Rielly travelled to Malawi with Kamkwamba after the TEDGlobal conference and helped to establish the blog, typing while Kamkwamba dictated the content in his limited English.

With help from friends, the Malawian also set up an email address and an account on Flickr (you can search for William Kamkwamba's photos on the website).

"William was so hungry for books and reference material," Rielly says. "He asked me for a dictionary, which I brought with me to Malawi. But I told him, 'I want to show you something even better than a dictionary.' After I showed him the internet, William commented, 'With computer, you can do anything."'

Kamkwamba was to get a chance to prove whether his belief in the power of the net was correct when a computer - donated by conference sponsors in the US - was due to arrive in his village last week.

"My future plan is that I'm going to learn to research using the internet," Kamkwamba says. "Then I plan to build a water pump powered by my windmill so we can have water from the well in our house and irrigate our fields. Then, I don't know."

Lending Peer to Peer- by Proxy

I have been following a fellow blogger, Matt Flannery, for sometime now on Social Edge, an online forum for social entrepreneurs (for more about Social Edge, see my interview with Victor D’Allant). Some when in town I popped over to meet Matt in person.

Matt’s blog is an insiders guide to setting up a social venture. He should know; he has been doing it for the last two years. The result has been Kiva.org, an online peer to peer micro finance lending platform. Sound complex? Well it’s not. The idea is rather straightforward really. I’ll give an example.

Take, let’s say, John, a 25 year old man in Kampala, Uganda who is setting up a bike repair business. John has a wife and family, has the usual bills to pay, and is also supporting his younger brother’s education. He can’t do that until he can get his bike business off the ground, and in order to do that he needs a loan. So he goes to a micro-finance institution (small loan bank) to ask for the money.

Pause there and meet Joan.

Joan lives in Dublin, a 30 year old school teacher. She has never visited Uganda, but has been following the news and is interested in getting more involved with development issues; but she a bit at a quandary how. She has given money to larger charities before, but would like to know more about where her donation exactly goes.

Basically, Kiva help to make some introductions. John meet Joan, Joan meet John.
Joan reads about John’s business online and decides to directly invest with him. The loan is made via the Kiva website, to John’s local micro-finance institution and then on to John. When John pays back the loan, Joan can track it online, and John can add some photos and stories.

John and Joan introduced. John’s business off the ground. Joan eventually paid back. And this year, it will be with interest.

That’s Kiva in a nutshell. It was Matt and his ‘amazing wife’ (his words- ahh) Jessica who got it off the ground, have rallied the support and continue to build the website along with a growing team in San Francisco. Other unrelated but fortuitous events have helped to speed Kiva’s growth, including Muhammad Yunnas winning the Nobel Prize for building the micro-finance field with Grameen Bank.

Other than that, it’s a lot of hard work, a lot of commitment, and a lot of introductions, oh, and broadband is a bonus.

To follow more on the Kiva story click here, and to make a loan, click here. There are lots and Joans and Johns to meet, and many more business’ to follow.