His Entire Community and Even His Mom Thought He Was Crazy. But Then He Turned On The Lights.
In 2002, Malawi was in the midst of one of its worst droughts. Fourteen-year-old William Kamkwamba was suffering greatly from the crisis — his family was on the verge of starvation and they didn’t have enough money to send him to school.
As a result, William spent most of his free time at the U.S. government funded library, drawn to books about science. Because he couldn’t read English very well, he often picked up books containing pictures and diagrams.
Screen Shot via TED
When he saw a picture of a windmill in one of the books, a lightbulb went off in his head.
“I saw the picture of the windmill in the library book so when I saw it I said ‘ah, this picture in this book, I think I can also build this windmill,'” he told Jon Stewart on The Daily Show.
He believed the...