William Kamkwamba: How I harnessed the wind

Short Summary:

At 14, William, from rural Malawi could not afford school fees any more. He used the local library to study. He found a book on basic physics and one on energy. His English wasn't great, but a lot of the pictures and diagrams were labelled, so he could connect the dots. The latter book had some info on windmills. This seemed doable. He built a windmill from junk and connected it to a bicycle dynamo. We kept adding to it and it became relatively sophisticated.

This powered his houses lights, radio and charged mobile phones for the whole village. He also built one for irrigation.

Someone eventually noticed these and word went through the press and blogosphere landing him (at 19) at a TED conference.

This guy loves windmills. He really loves them.

I see that the title was changed back to how it appeared on the site. I actually meant this as a starting point for thoughts on programs such as YC supporting social causes to some extent. Access to a program where people makes things, access to the YC alumni community.

It is a resource that can be used for other purposes.