Malawian teenage Windmill maker dominates TED Talks

At TEDGlobal 2007, participants were privileged to listen to great speakers give their well prepared talks in Arusha, Tanzania. And indeed, you'll agree with me when the videos get uploaded on web that they were great talks.

The sessions included both 18 minute talks and short 3 minute presentations by a diverse group of speakers including business leaders, artists, activists, engineers, inventors and musicians.

Among these was a 3 minute Question and Answer session where the curator Chris Anderson asked William Kamkwamba questions regarding the Windmill he created for his home in Kasungu, Malawi at the age of 14. Through the Questions with photos on the slides, William told his story which made people shed tears and later, give him a big applause and a standing ovation.

In the sessions that followed, William's story became the most cited talk among the talks at this conference. Speakers like Ory Okolloh of Kenyan Pundit, journalist Dele Olojede and Noah A. Samara of WorldSpace referred to William Kamkwamba's tale of invention in their sessions.

The picture above shows Ory Okolloh who included the photo of William's QnA session with Chris Anderson from the previous day in her slides.

Look out for the TED Talk videos from TEDGlobal 2007 when they're uploaded on TED's website.

Meeting William Kamkwamba

When I was preparing to attend TEDGlobal 2007 I was prepared to meet great people with great stories behind them. This is so because everyone I talked to who knew about TED conferences told me it was a very amazing conference and I was very lucky to attend it.

This was confirmed at Kamuzu International Airport in Lilongwe, Malawi just after boarding the plane to Arusha, Tanzania via Nairobi. Sitting next to me was the only other Malawian to attend TEDGlobal 2007, William Kamkwamba. This is the now 19 year old who created a windmill to generate electricity for his family after dropping out of school due to failure to pay school fees when he was 14. He is a quiet and humble young man but very detailed when explaining his projects. His story was first published in Malawi's Daily Times article titled "School drop out with a streak of genius" and later spread on the web through blogs.

What I like about William is that he didn't join the multitude of people just blaming government or policy makers for his lack of education. Neither did he point fingers at statutory corporations for the lack of electricity in his home. He didn't just sit down and blame his parents for all this either!

He looked around and used what he could find - poles, broken pipes, old shoes, copper wires and his father's old bicycle - to build a windmill for his home.

His story inspires me a lot and so does it to a lot of the people who have heard his story including the participants of TEDGlobal 2007.

After news of his story was reported in the media and over the internet, a lot of people have come up to support William. He is now back in school and there are efforts from some members of the TED community to sponsor him his next project: A bigger windmill to pump water from a nearby dam to irrigate crops for his family.

Creative actions speak louder than words, indeed!

Back from TEDGlobal 2007

I'm back from TED Global 2007 conference. The conference was great, I liked the mix of people from Technology, Entertainment and Design professions that were present.

There were people form diverse professions and origins with one thing in common, the passion for Africa's prosperity.

Before going to TED Global, I kept hearing voices blaming governments for not doing this and that plus several other reasons why African countries cannot prosper unless some one from outside Africa does something.

At TED however, everyone I met was determined to solve Africa's problems without waiting for governments or donors. So I've come back energised and connected to the right community that will hopefully keep me motivated.

I'll be uploading photos I took in Arusha and blogging what happened at TED Global 2007 so you don't miss out completely. And from the software developer in me, expect some cool releases soon.

Going to TEDGlobal 2007

Earlier this year, I was one of the 100 lucky people from Africa to be awarded a fellowship to attend the TED Global 2007 Conference to be held in Arusha, Tanzania. The fellowships are sponsored by Google, AMD and GE.

TEDGlobal Conference is a sister conference to TED (Technology Entertainment Design) Conference that is held in different countries every other year. This year's conference, titled "Africa: The Next Chapter", is the second one after one that was held in Oxford, England in 2005.

So I'll heading to Tanzania this Sunday for this conference. While there, I'll be privileged to talk about how we at Baobab Health Partnership are tackling various problems in the delivery of health care in Malawi with carefully engineered technology solutions.

Looking forward to meeting and sharing with innovators from Africa and beyond!