When Lighting your House is Unexpected
In this blog we have looked at various unexpected ideas, and often these are big ideas or innovations from organisations, such as electric bikes, worm poop plant food, and plans to mine the moon for rocket fuel.
But unexpected ideas may also be things you and I take for granted – like lighting and water.
William Kamkwamba was a village boy living Malawi. When Malawi was struck with food shortages in 2001, his family with 6 other children lived on one meal a day and his parents could no longer afford for him to attend school. William started reading science books at the library to continue his education and one day read a book on how windmills could generate electricity and pump water. At age 14 William built his family a windmill using branches, bicycle parts and scraps from a scrapyard. At first it lit one light for the house. Later William enhanced this to four lights and then added a second windmill to pump water for the village’s irrigation.
Like many unexpected ideas William’s windmill generated attention and media coverage. William has now spoken at TED twice and his most recent presentation is included in the video below. If you can’t see the video click here.
William is now studying at the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa on scholarship.
William can be an inspiration to us all to try something different to change our circumstances for the better.
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