Why the Internet Was Created

So that people like William Kamkwamba could inspire the entire rest of the world.

This is awesome both in the "too totally cool" sense of the word I absorbed into my pores as a teenager in the 80s and in the old, non-slang sense of inspiring awe. William is a 19-year-old in Malawi, and this is his windmill blog. He grew up in a village with no electricity, in a house lit by pungent paraffin candles. He had to drop out of school for five years because his family couldn't pay the fees. But just because William couldn't take classes didn't mean he stopped learning:

During that time I decided to try to get as much education as possible by reading as many books as I could find. An organization called the Malawian Teacher Training Activity (MTTA), a project of USAID contributed a large quantity of books to the primary school library near my home. I read many of them.  One of the books I read was called Using Energy, a primary school textbook about how energy is made. Inside the book there were plans for a windmill. I decided to build a windmill to provide power for my family.

Read the rest to find out what happened—and how it came to pass that William is now writing a blog.

Comments

[Alice Gunther]

Lissa, you always manage to find the best and most interesting resources.

[Faith]

This is so inspirational. What a lovely young man.

There is hope!

[Marilyn]

What an great article. It is even more inspirational to me given that I spent a lot of my childhood in Malawi, when my parents lived and worked there.