William Kamkwamba

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William Kamkwamba 2007

William Kamkwamba, actually William Trywell Kamkwamba, (born August 5, 1987 ) is a student and mechanic from Malawi . He became famous in his home country when he Masitala 2001, a windmill from blue eucalyptus built, bicycle parts and materials from the local junkyard to drive to some electrical appliances in his family home. Since then he has built a solar-powered water pump, which supplies his village with drinking water for the first time, and two more windmills, the tallest one being eleven meters high; two more are planned, including one in Lilongwe .

Life

When he had to stop school because his family could not pay the school fees (≈ US $ 80), he trained himself further by visiting the village library. There he discovered the book Using Energy and saw in it the picture and the explanation of a windmill.

The first windmill

His story is told in the book The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (German edition: The boy who caught the wind: An African heroic story ), which he wrote with the journalist Bryan Mealer and which was awarded the Corine in 2010 . The film of the same name with Chiwetel Ejiofor is also based on the story of Kamkwamba. He attended Maker Faire Africa , the first event to celebrate this special kind of ingenuity, in Ghana in August 2009.

International celebrity

Kamkwamba and Mealer at a book signing session

When the newspaper Daily Times in Blantyre in November 2006 wrote an article about Kamkwamba windmills, the story spread through the blogosphere and the director of TED , Emeka Okafor , invited Kamkwamba one in which TEDGlobal 2007 in Arusha , Tanzania to speak as a guest . His presentation impressed the gathering, and several venture capitalists at the conference pledged to fund his further education. Sarah Childress reported his story from the Wall Street Journal . He enrolled as a student at the African Bible College Christian Academy in Lilongwe. Currently, however, he is studying at the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg , South Africa, with the help of a scholarship .

Among other appearances, Kamkwamba was interviewed on October 7, 2009 on the Daily Show as well as on the news site Reddit .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "William Kamkwamba, windmill designer is coming to Ghana" , July 4, 2009
  2. ↑ Hacktivate - Malawian windmill
  3. ^ "TED Talks: William Kamkwamba on building a windmill"
  4. ↑ "A Young tinkerer builds a Windmill, Electrifying a Nation" , Sarah Childress , Wall Street Journal , December 12, 2007
  5. ↑ Jude Sheerin: Malawi windmill boy with big fans , BBC News . October 1, 2009. 
  6. ^ The Daily Show, October 7, 2009: William Kamkwamba
  7. ↑ Reddit blog: announcement and collection of questions for William Kamkwamba's interview ( Memento December 10, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ Reddit blog: interview of William Kamkwamba ( Memento from October 15, 2009 in the Internet Archive )

Works

  • William Kamkwamba, Bryan Mealer: The Boy Who Catched the Wind. An African hero story . Irisiana-Verlag, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-424-15043-8 .

Web links

Commons : William Kamkwamba  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files
personal data
SURNAME Kamkwamba, William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Malawian student and mechanic
DATE OF BIRTH 5th August 1987
PLACE OF BIRTH Malawi