The Doers Club

http://changeobserver.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=10707

by bootload • 17 years ago

196 22 17 years ago

changeobserver.designobserver.com

bootload• 17 years ago

"... In 2002, I built my first of several windmills to provide my family with electricity and irrigation. This was in Malawi, where a terrible drought and famine had destroyed our maize crops and killed thousands of people. The famine also forced me to drop out of secondary school because my father could no longer afford my fees. Determined to continue my education, I began visiting a local library, funded by the Americans, where I quickly fell in love with science. As the hunger clawed its way across our country, the library was where I escaped and became lost in discussions of electromagnetism, simple motors and electricity — my favorite topic ..."

William has a blog here ~ http://williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/williamkamkwamba/ & twit account ~ http://twitter.com/wkamkwamba and a couple of Ted talks here ~ http://socialentrepreneurship.change.org/blog/view/moving_wi...

joechung• 17 years ago

William's talk at TED - http://www.ted.com/talks/william_kamkwamba_how_i_harnessed_t...

seiji• 17 years ago

At first glance I was expecting an article about http://www.kpcb.com/team/doerr

cesare• 17 years ago

This guy is a true hacker.

danielzarick• 17 years ago

You could not have said it better. This guy is truly amazing. I'm mostly impressed with the fact that he learned most of what he did from pictures, not words, and from scouring the junkyard and learning how things worked. Great analogy for anybody trying to learn in a new field, particularly hackers.

davidw• 17 years ago

I'm normally not very convinced that everyone who does something neat deserves that label (yay, everyone's a hacker! thus cheapening it), but this guy clearly does. He's solving real problems in creative, non-obvious ways to make something where there was nothing. Inspiring story.

caffeine• 17 years ago

He is, you're right. And I'm sure that it's individuals making incremental improvements in life quality that moves a place forward. But ... (and I'm trying to say this right) ... some part of me feels really depressed that a Malawi kid building a scrapyard generator is hailed as being so inspirational.

Is our view of Africa so pessimistic, then, so jaded, that what appears to be routine on Scrapheap Challenge is an inspirational act, just because it happened in Africa? Does it mean we normally operate on the underlying assumption that it is preposterous for the average African kid to work to improve his life, but perfectly normal for a kid in Texas or Utrecht to do so?

Does it mean we view the normal functioning of the good human spirit, of generosity and inventiveness, as somehow nonexistent in typical African children and therefore worthy of immense celebration in this one child? Do these views permeate our governments? Do we send aid not as the favor a good-natured neighbor would perform in times of duress, but rather as we might offer a beer to a man we have beggared, knowing his condition to be permanent but wishing nonetheless to lend him a moment's joy in a world of suffering?

Maybe our celebration of this kid (and it's true, what he did is awesome and helps his village and family out tremendously) is just about being genuinely warmed by the overcoming of a supremely difficult environment. Or maybe celebrating a minor victory assuages our guilt, pervasive hopelessness, and ultimate indifference regarding Africa.

I'm honestly not certain - but every time I see one of these stories, this same feeling of uneasiness comes up, and I'm not sure which way is the truth. Probably, like everything in the world, it's some of each.

mahmud4• 17 years ago

Does it mean we normally operate on the underlying assumption that it is preposterous for the average African kid to work to improve his life, but perfectly normal for a kid in Texas or Utrecht to do so?

Don't over think it.

American culture is littered with celebrations of child academic/scientific achievements; spelling bees, science competitions, mathematics Olympiads, appearances in late-night shows, "Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader", etc. Science and Mathematics magazines are full of the achievements of the youth, and the greatest of them all, SAT scores and college-admission epeens! Graduate students of every field live under the shadow of some little cockblock child prodigy or another; how many times have you been told "Gauss did this when he was 9", etc.

Every once in a while, we're allowed to have one such story .. from Africa. Fair enough?

GavinB• 17 years ago

There's a level of difficulty difference. When one has the proper tools, training, and support, these things are much easier.

A kid in Texas doing a science fair project probably has supportive parents, a knowledgeable science teacher, and access to a machine shop--not to mention having enough to eat every night.

camccann• 17 years ago

Impressive.

The world needs more people like this guy.

thangalin2• 17 years ago

I donated $250 US through PayPal.

Donations Coordinator Contact Information Moving Windmills Project, inc. mmarkiewicz@cbizmahoneycohen.com 2127905914

http://williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/

Edit: I encourage you to do the same.

mahmud4• 17 years ago

These are the people OLPC was supposed to empower. The man has his own electric source, I wanna get him a laptop full of ebooks.

tomjen2• 17 years ago

I concur, but it isn't going to do much good if he doesn't read English.

thangalin2• 17 years ago

Do it.

kiba• 17 years ago

This guy put me to shame.

I got an Arduino Duemilanove, the internet as my library, and lot of electronics to scavenge. I only produced something as insignificant as a working CD-ROM motor and some LEDs light.

He produced a windmill power generator!

mkn• 17 years ago

It's not often I get to say something positive, so I'm jumping on the chance here. I'm going to guess that you live in a first-world nation where plentiful electricity is an afterthought. A working CD-ROM motor is awesome! I presume that this is a brushless design? And the feeling of control you get from lighting those LEDs is awesome, too!

William Kamkwambe did not put you to shame. With any luck, he will have inspired you! You and I live in an environment saturated with information and technology. Maybe you'll be inspired to accept a slightly less extravagant lifestyle in exchange for some charitable donations? Maybe you'll be inspired to use your skills to do some work overseas where it could alleviate real suffering?

The beauty of this story is that it makes both the plight of many people and the prospect of manifold solutions seem more real. What you do or do not do with William's contribution will be your source of pride or shame.

mahmud4• 17 years ago

William said he couldn't speak English. If anybody is interested in teaching others like him English while learning their language and culture, drop by one of the many language-exchange websites. Here is one for Malawi:

http://www.mylanguageexchange.com/Search.asp?selX3=95&se...

maxklein• 17 years ago

How much easier it would have been if there were a book with step-by-step instructions. How many more people would have been able to create something like that.

If you really want to help, how about taking some useful knowledge that you have, make a step-by-step instruction on how to achieve that, and publish this somewhere? This is more useful than donating $250 to some black hole.

Luc• 17 years ago

And if you really really want to help, you can catch the next plane with some supplies, and if you really really really want to help you can move there for a few years and work for free - but meanwhile I think a $250 donation is not to be sniffed at!

known• 17 years ago

Seriously, some body should nominate him to Nobel Prize http://nobelprize.org/contact/faq/index.html#nominate

peregrine• 17 years ago

Sometimes I feel like living in a modern society that we have little need to "hack" solutions cause its far cheaper to buy a current solution. And regardless it appears that all low hanging fruit are taken and it appears that it takes more climbing to reach even a little achievement.

I love what he is doing, regardless.

The Doers Club

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