William Kamkwamba's Ambitious Next Project
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 08. 9.07
We originally reported on Malawi inventor William Kamkwamba's remarkable achievement a few months ago. At the tender age of 14, using nothing more than his wit, spare parts and scrap, he constructed a bare-bones but fully functional electricity-producing windmill — which provided enough energy to power 4 lights and 2 radios.
Now aged 19, he is setting his sights on building a larger windmill to help pump water and provide irrigation for his family's vegetable garden. Eventually he hopes to generate enough power to irrigate all the crops in his village (be sure to check out his in-depth blog posting on the project here). In this moving video, William describes how he first came up with the idea to build the windmill, how he did it and what his future goals are.
Thanks to the widespread attention he garnered through his talk, Kamkwamba got enough support to help him improve his power system by incorporating solar energy and received enough donations to fund mentorships and his education. You can't help but feel inspired by this young man's vision.
Via ::TED: Talks William Kamkwamba: How I built my family a windmill (news website), :: William Kamkwamba's Malawi Windmill Blog: Surveying for water (blog)
See also: ::Ingenuity + Wind + Text Book = Home Made Electricity
he doesn't need any step up transformers to charge a mobile phone, espically since he is using 12v car batteries. So many people put in a very inefficient inverter to get 120v only to drop it back down to 12 or under for their electronic devices. he could easily hook up a car charger for the phones, I have a couple sitting in a box at home from old phones.
I can't tell from the picture how he made the blades for the windmill, they look like plain simple rectangles.
what a hypocrite, BMW as a Sponsor!!!
Jesus
I thought that it was rather nice of BMW to sponsor this rural African kid to the conference...
Of course commercially driven, but how else would William be ever in a position to share his achievements with the world and gain a little welfare for his village?
The idea that car companies are poluting the world with their products and therefore are not allowed to associate themselves with sustainabke living is a little to simple to my opinion.
If going green is hot, the carmakers have to adapt and the first step is create a green look. Other steps such as energy saving thechniques will follow if they are reasonably easy to implement and the return on investments is enough. I am not saying that it goes fast enough to my opnion, but slowly and steady we get more economical cars is my experience.
By the way, in Europe the BMW 1 gets an A rating for less liters per km than similar cars. I drive an Audi, but this single fact made the choice difficult. My solution is to drive less...
The message of this movie is, however, that we need affordable simple technology for rapid improvements in living standards in Africa and mabye in our homes as well!
Regards,
CFris
Sometimes it is not easy to find sponsors completely attuned to your personal project. That being said, isn't it better that BMW is making an effort to support enterprising individuals in the field of environmental innovation instead of dumping all of their money into funding say coal plants and puppy killing mills?
As to the hypocrisy of BMW sponsoring William.
This is not quite the case, BMW sponsor the distribution of the annual TED talks, which are amazing and inspiring talks by remarkable people.
In terms of technology development BMW are one of the few leaders in their field.
Personally, I am very thankful hey have made this possible for indeed the TED talks are one of the best "things" available on the internet.
Along with Treehugger of course !!