Monday Motivator #2 – It’s in the Wind

Human ingenuity is instinctual and thus it lacks the borders of location or situation.  Greatness will be the result of any place on this planet.

 WILLIAM KAMKWAMBA (14 at the time) dreamed of powering his village with the only resource that was freely available to him.  Malawi had gone through one of its worst droughts in 2002 killing thousands. His family and others were surviving on one meal a day.   ( http://www.malawi.gov.mw/ )

Kamkwamba was kicked out of school when his family could not afford the $80 in fees and he spent his days self-teaching at the library. Amid all the shortages, one thing was still abundant. – Wind.  A book with photographs of windmills caught his eye. He scoured through junkyards for items including bicycle parts, plastic pipes, tractor fans and car batteries, for the tower he collected wood from blue-gum trees.  He taught himself how to build windmills. His homemade creation furnished the family with electricity and a new start.

Former Associated Press Africa correspondent Bryan Mealer, co-wrote the book, “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind,” after hearing of Kamkwamba’s story.

( http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Harnessed-Wind-Electricity/dp/0061730327 )  amazon.com link

Kamkwamba has already been invited to and spoken at TED twice and he was also invited to the 2011 Google Science Fair introductory meeting, where he was a guest speaker. When I was in South Africa for the World Cup we communicated while he was at an academy school in Johannesburg, he now attends Dartmouth in the United States with the funding aid of some individuals he impressed while speaking at the TED appearances.

follow / contact William via his blog  blog link

http://williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/

Every Monday, the goal is a motivational posting.   Thanks William.

I have ideas, but will take suggestions.

Happy Monday.