“The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope”
William Kamkwamba is a Malawian inventor, author, and student. After being forced to drop out of school because his family could not afford tuition, he regularly visited his village’s library. There, he found the book Using Energy and discovered a picture and explanation of windmills. He gained fame in his country when, in 2002, he built a windmill to power a few electrical appliances in his family’s house using parts collected in a local scrapyard. Since then, he has built a solar-powered water pump that supplies the first drinking water in his village.
His story is told in The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope, published in 2009. Kamkwamba is one of four recipients of the 2010 GO Ingenuity Award, a prize awarded to inventors, artists, and makers to promote the sharing of their innovations and skills with marginalized youth in developing nations.
Currently, he is a student at Dartmouth College, Class of 2014.
A book signing and reception will follow the lecture.
This event is free and open to the public.
Sponsored by: cSEND Energy Lecture Series, College of Engineering Edison Lecture Fund, College of Science Lynch Endowment, Center for Social Concerns, Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values, College of Arts and Letters, and the Office of Sustainability, and in partnership with Malawi Matters.
Bringing young students? Click here for the young readers (ages 6 and up) version of Kamkwamba’s book The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.