Here's our interview with Jason and Max on Current TV's Still Up show. This was in Los Angeles, right after we arrived from a long flight from Washington DC. But I loved LA because the weather was warm and we met cool people like Max and Jason. Guys, it was great to be on your show!
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October 2009
October 29, 2009
October 28, 2009
October 12, 2009
October 08, 2009
Welcome, viewers of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart"
First of all I would like to thank Jon Stewart and his producers at The Daily Show who gave me the opportunity to tell you about my story. If you watched The Daily Show tonight on Comedy Central you might be interested in learning more. Read my bio here. Find out more about the book here. Watch a 6 minute short film about my work here. See my recent TEDTalk from the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford here. Read a current interview by Matthew Trost of TED here. Find out where you can meet me in person at a book signing or public appearance during my book tour with co-author Bryan Mealer here. If you're wondering what I'm up to now, I'm a senior in high school at African Leadership Academy, the first pan-African prep school educating the next generation of ethical African leaders. Like many American teens, I'm studying for the SAT and preparing to apply to colleges in America; at 22 I'm just a little bit older. My U.S.-based friends have set up a U.S. 501(c)3 non-profit organization, Moving Windmills Project, which supports my village projects, helps to fund my education and that of others in my village and is producing a feature-length documentary film based on the short film mentioned above. If you are interested in supporting the NGO, you may do so here. After college, I plan to return to Malawi to start a company to manufacture and sell low-cost distributed clean energy and clean water systems, including wind and solar power, serving my country's rural poor. Find out more about my home country of Malawi in Wikipedia, from the US Govt. World Fact Book and onGlobal Voices. See a great high resolution map of Malawi at Nations Online. Learn a few phrases of my native language Chichewa here. You can buy a copy of the book from one of these stores:Independent Bookseller BetterWorldBooks Powells Borders Barnes and Noble Amazon.com
Zikomo Kwambiri (Thank you very much) for visiting my website and please feel free to post a comment or email me. Mwalandiridwa (Welcome).
Sincerely,William
Omnivoracious: Generating Hope with William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
From the Amazon.com book blog Omnivoracious:
Few believed that a fourteen-year-old drop-out could lift his village up from the clutches of famine. Even fewer believed the solution could be found in the local junkyard. William was called misala ("crazy") by many in his village and even his own mother wondered if her son had lost his mind. Yet he remained undaunted as he pursued a dream of creating a machine that could turn wind into life-changing electricity.
October 07, 2009
Reminder: Watch me on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" tonight at 11 pm ET/10 pm CT
Tonight! Please post in the comments later what you thought.
Publisher's Weekly Starred Review: "The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind"
Publisher's Weekly just posted this review. My friends have told me that a star is really good.
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope
American readers will have their imaginations challenged by 14-year-old Kamkwamba’s description of life in Malawi, a famine-stricken, land-locked nation in southern Africa: math is taught in school with the aid of bottle tops (“three Coca-Cola plus ten Carlsberg equal thirteen”), people are slaughtered by enemy warriors “disguised… as green grass” and a ferocious black rhino; and everyday trading is “replaced by the business of survival” after famine hits the country. After starving for five months on his family’s small farm, the corn harvest slowly brings Kamkwamba back to life. Witnessing his family’s struggle, Kamkwamba’s supercharged curiosity leads him to pursue the improbable dream of using “electric wind”(they have no word for windmills) to harness energy for the farm. Kamkwamba’s efforts were of course derided; salvaging a motley collection of materials, from his father’s broken bike to his mother’s clothes line, he was often greeted to the tune of “Ah, look, the madman has come with his garbage.” This exquisite tale strips life down to its barest essentials, and once there finds reason for hopes and dreams, and is especially resonant for Americans given the economy and increasingly heated debates over health care and energy policy. (Oct.)
Malawi's Nyasa Times: Malawi innovator holds ‘important lesson’ about educational beliefs, practices -intellectuals | Malawi news
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Malawi innovator holds ‘important lesson’ about educational beliefs, practices -intellectuals
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By NYASA TIMES
Published: October 7, 2009
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Malawi’s genius, Willam Kamkwamba, 22 who at the age of 14 built an electricity-producing windmill from spare parts and scrap when he dropped out of school due to poverty, hold an important lesson for Malawi and other countries about education beliefs and practices, according to intellectuals.
Kamkwamba’s invention attracted international attention, and he is currently in America on a book tour after the release of his autobiography, ‘The boy who harnessed the wind’.
“The discovery of Mr. Kamkwamba is a blessing to the nation as it reminds policymakers of the effects that less robust development policies can have on schooling. Mr. Kamkwamba has done what most of us, and most degree holders in engineering have not done,” Dr Greenwell Matchaya, DPhil (Economics) told Nyasa Times.
“We know he is not alone, but that there are many more like him waiting for our support in the rural areas of Malawi and perhaps the debate about equity must further aim to address the structural causes of low school enrolment (that denied him of formal education) both at the primary schools level all the way to tertiary levels,” added Matchaya.
He recommended that the innovator who attended the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa should be given an honorary degree.
“For Mr. Kamkwamba’s name to continue inspiring Malawi’s youth of today and tomorrow, I wouldn’t mind hearing that he is accorded an Honorary degree in innovation or electrical engineering, and that he is sometimes accorded airtime on TVM and MBC to talk about his invention,” said Matchaya.
Dr Mathews Mtumbuka of Malswitch recently told the Society of Accountant in Malawi (SOCAM) Lakeshore Conference that Malawi without oil reserves, with limited mineral and with small land, its future lies in developing and exporting technology.
A visiting Assistant Professor of Peace and Justice Studies in the Department of Philosophy at Michigan State University, Dr Steve Sharra told Nyasa Times that it is inspiring to watch the excitement accompanying Mr. Kamkwamba’s achievements and the newly released book, co-authored by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer.
“Several people have pointed out that this inspiring story serves as an antidote to the paralyzing and debilitating portrayal of Africa as a place of perpetual hopelessness and powerlessness. As a matter of fact some reviewers have fallen into the same stereotype of Africa, celebrating Mr. Kamkwamba’s phenomenal accomplishments but in the process failing to resist the temptation to paint Malawi as a 21st century ‘Heart of darkness’ where everyone is diseased, starved, hopeless, jealous and superstitious,” said Dr Sharra.
He pointed out that Kamkwamba’s story helps Malawians to better understand some of the unintended consequences of the educational system the country has adopted.
“On the one hand, we are appalled by a society whose educational system fails to provide for a talented young person like Mr. Kamkwamba, forcing him out of school because of lack of money for school fees. On the other hand, we are faced with the question as to whether Mr. Kamkwamba would have had the intellectual and technical space and freedom to pursue his experiments with home-made electricity, had he been afforded the opportunity to continue with his secondary school education,” said Sharra.
“School systems, whether in Africa, Asia, Latin America or indeed in the West can of course facilitate one’s intellect and talents to blossom. However schools are also known as places where one is forced to follow strict stipulations about what to learn and what not to learn, with a teacher guiding one’s academic program. Many bright and intelligent young people see their intellects stifled and boxed into conventional thinking, repressing their creativity and genius. This is a conundrum which we have to acknowledge,” he pointed out.
According to Sharra, Kamkwamba’s innovation has the political economy factor. He said in countries such as Malawi, a huge factor of the limited opportunities for enterprising individuals such as Kamkwamba is the political economy and its vicious cycle of poorly equipped schools, poorly trained teachers, and very few opportunities for one to advance beyond basic education.
“The global political economy dictates the ups and downs of other economies, with instabilities and fluctuations affecting other countries, as the ongoing economic crisis demonstrate. The Brettonwoods Institutions stipulate conditions on developing countries, requiring them to remove crucial subsidies and reduce social spending. This in turn translates into governments of developing countries being forced to stop hiring new teachers, nurses, and other key personnel, and also on raising their salaries,” he said
He said the problem of inefficiency and corruption also plays a role, but there are other equally consequential external factors.
“The story of Mr. Kamkwamba and how he was able to beat the odds therefore ought to make us focus on the problems that underlie the conditions that leave so many talented people unspotted and unsupported. It ought to make us focus on our educational systems, and the global political economy, among other areas requiring scrutiny.
“Above all, it exhorts us to broaden our analysis beyond the tired, narrow stereotypes of corruption and ineffective leadership,” said Sharra.
Sharra said Kamkwamba’s story gives the southern African nation a chance to celebrate many other unique Malawians who have also made breakthroughs with innovative thinking.
“One such person, in addition to Mr. Kamkwamba, is primary school teacher, teacher educator and scientist Andrews Nchessie, who invented a flood warning system, and led his Standard 4 students at Kasungu TTC Demonstration School in various scientific experiments researching fish farming, indigenous cures for infectious diseases such as scabies, among others,” he pointed out.
Another Malawian also worth celebrating, Sharra noted, is Mr. Friday Nikoloma, a Thyolo farmer who invented an irrigation system that propels water from low lying sources to irrigate farms upland.
“Mr. Nikoloma’s work ought to be discussed in the same breath as the achievements of the late Dr. Chinkuntha, who also initiated an irrigation system that brought researchers and scientists from elsewhere in Africa and beyond to come and study his farm,” said Sharra.
The academic also highlighted a secondary school teacher of French, Nolence Mangwego, who invented a unique style of writing called the Mangwego script.
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