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William Kamkwamba is a Malawian inventor, engineer, and author. He gained renown in his country in 2001 when he built a wind turbine to power multiple electrical appliances in his family's house in Wimbe, 23 kilometres (14 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 fir…
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science · Malawian inventor · inventor · writer · electronician · electrotechnician · also William Kamkwamba, Kamkwamba
Born 5 August 1987 · Q448964
30 published statements · 0 followers
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I felt very happy to be at the secondary school, so I was determined to do anything possible to receive education. So I went to a library. I read books, science books, especially physics. I couldn't read English that well. I used diagrams and pictures to learn the words around them.
In Malawi, the secondary school, you have to pay school fees. Because of the hunger, I was forced to drop out of school. I looked at my father and looked at those dry fields. It was the future I couldn't accept.
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“I felt very happy to be at the secondary school, so I was determined to do anything possible to receive education. So I went to a library. I read books, science books, especially physics. I couldn't read English that well. I used diagrams and pictures to learn the words around them.”
Text from Wikiquote, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“In Malawi, the secondary school, you have to pay school fees. Because of the hunger, I was forced to drop out of school. I looked at my father and looked at those dry fields. It was the future I couldn't accept.”
Text from Wikiquote, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“So I would like to say something to all the people out there like me to the Africans, and the poor who are struggling with your dreams. God bless. Maybe one day you will watch this on the Internet. I say to you, trust yourself and believe. Whatever happens, don't give up. Thank you.”
Text from Wikiquote, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“I found a tractor fan, shock absorber, PVC pipes. Using a bicycle frame and an old bicycle dynamo, I built my machine. It was one light at first. And then four lights, with switches, and even a circuit breaker, modeled after an electric bell. Another machine pumps water for irrigation.”
Text from Wikiquote, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“Another book put that knowledge in my hands. It said a windmill could pump water and generate electricity. Pump water meant irrigation, a defense against hunger, which we were experiencing by that time. So I decided I would build one windmill for myself. But I didn't have materials to use, so I went to a scrap yard where I found my materials. Many people, including my mother, said I was crazy.”
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“Thank you. Two years ago, I stood on the TED stage in Arusha, Tanzania. I spoke very briefly about one of my proudest creations. It was a simple machine that changed my life.”
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“Before that time, I had never been away from my home in Malawi. I had never used a computer. I had never seen an Internet. On the stage that day, I was so nervous. My English lost, I wanted to vomit. I had never been surrounded by so many azungu, white people.”
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“There was a story I wouldn't tell you then. But well, I'm feeling good right now. I would like to share that story today. We have seven children in my family. All sisters, excepting me. This is me with my dad when I was a little boy. Before I discovered the wonders of science, I was just a simple farmer in a country of poor farmers. Like everyone else, we grew maize.”
Text from Wikiquote, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Mid Day: William Kamkwamba: ‘We’ll have to figure a way to generate a lot of food, for a lot of people’
Yahoo Finance: At Age 14, William Kamkwamba Built A Windmill To Generate Electricity In Malawi — Now, He’s Supporting Youth Inventions
Yahoo: 'The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind': Inventor William Kamkwamba visits renewable energy program at Desert Hot Springs High
Hackaday: William Kamkwamba
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind was adapted into a film, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, who also wrote and directed
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Snopes.com rated the claim “Based on information he learned from library books, school drop-out William Kamkwamba built a windmill out of scrap parts and brought electricity to his village in Malawi.” True.
Shown as reported and rated by a fact checker, not as an established fact.
Kamkwamba received a bachelor of arts degree in environmental studies from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire where he was elected to the Sphinx Senior Honor Society
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Studied at Dartmouth College, Bachelor of Arts (2014).
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Graduated from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire
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It was selected as the common book at Auburn University and University of Michigan College of Engineering, as well
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Malawi Nyasa Times: Malawian windmill film launches in Canada: Starring William Kamkwamba
TIME magazine named Kamkwamba one of the "30 People Under 30 Changing The World
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Awarded Corine Literature Prize (2010).
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Awarded GO Ingenuity Award (2010).
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The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind was selected as the University of Florida and Boise State University common book, required for all incoming students to read
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Studied at African Leadership Academy (2008–2010).
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Hackaday: William Kamkwamba Talks Windmills With Jon Stewart
Founded a non-profit organization named "Moving Windmills Project" in order to be able to help support not only his local community in Kasangu, Malawi, but all communities in Malawi to be able to create hands-on developm
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Kamkwamba entered an intensive two-year academic program combining the Cambridge University A-levels curriculum with leadership, entrepreneurship, and African studies at the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, So
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
When he built a wind turbine to power multiple electrical appliances in his family's house in Wimbe, 23 kilometres (14 mi) east of Kasungu, using blue gum trees, bicycle parts, and materials collected in a local scrapyar
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“One year our fortune turned very bad. In 2001 we experienced an awful famine. Within five months all Malawians began to starve to death. My family ate one meal per day, at night. Only three swallows of nsima for each one of us. The food passes through our bodies. We drop down to nothing.”
Text from Wikiquote, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Born 1987-08-05.
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
So I would like to say something to all the people out there like me to the Africans, and the poor who are struggling with your dreams. God bless. Maybe one day you will watch this on the Internet. I say to you, trust yourself and believe. Whatever happens, don't give up. Thank you.
I found a tractor fan, shock absorber, PVC pipes. Using a bicycle frame and an old bicycle dynamo, I built my machine. It was one light at first. And then four lights, with switches, and even a circuit breaker, modeled after an electric bell. Another machine pumps water for irrigation.
Another book put that knowledge in my hands. It said a windmill could pump water and generate electricity. Pump water meant irrigation, a defense against hunger, which we were experiencing by that time. So I decided I would build one windmill for myself. But I didn't have materials to use, so I went to a scrap yard where I found my materials. Many people, including my mother, said I was crazy.
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