Green Energy and Low-Tech Innovation in Africa

There are more than three hundred million youth between the ages of 10 and 24 spread out across sub-Saharan Africa. Like young people throughout the developing world, African youth aspire to a life well-lived and to helping their families. But the difference between wanting a better future and wanting to help your family and being able to do those things too often seems like a chasm too wide to bridge.

This is the story of one of those young people.

Africa receives some high-profile attention: Bono calls for debt forgiveness. Bill Clinton hosts conferences on international cooperation on the continent. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt chose Africa for their child's birthplace. But there is another name to add to a long list of individuals and organizations with Africa on their minds and agendas. He lives in Malawi, one of Africa's poorest countries and generally known, if at all, as the place where Madonna controversially adopted a toddler. This young man is striking evidence of Africa's ability to grow and prosper and of African creativity and ingenuity.

His name is William Kamkwamba. Born and raised in an impoverished village, he knows Africa's hardships, joys, and values. His expertise is not based on a theory, book, or employment in the aid and development field but evidenced by a delicate-looking tower in his yard that he designed and built on his own. It is a beautiful monument in its simplicity and usefulness.

I first came across William's story in a report about this year's TED Conference held in Monterrey, California. At a gathering that has hosted leaders, luminaries and cutting-edge minds like Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos, Ideo creative director Paul Bennett, Dr. Larry Brilliant of the Seva Foundation, philosopher and scientist Dan Dennet, Silicon Valley entrepreneur John Doerr among many others, a soft-spoken 19-year-old from a village called Kasungu in Malawi stepped to the stage to tell his story.

Poor and 14, William, like millions of others like him, left school because he was unable to afford the tuition. Rather than drifting to the youthful unemployed populations in big cities like Lilongwe or Blantyre, William decided he would become a self-educated man. He found a book on windmills and electricity and studied it on his own. He took what he read - not word for word but filtered through his own ingenuity and first-hand knowledge of local needs and contexts - and built a practical solution for a vexing family problem: lack of electricity in his home.

Adapting the printed instructions to his own conditions and available resources, William constructed first a five meter windmill and then a 12 meter windmill from plastic pipes, pieces of wood, and his father's bicycle. He harnessed a clean natural resource and began generating about 12 volts of electricity-enough to power four light bulbs and two radios in his family's home.

What was the theoretical framework? The underlying ideology? The geopolitical subtext? The aid source and funding process?

"I read the book... I tried and I made it," William explained to a clearly touched and admiring TED audience.

There are some very valid insights into African aid policies and development practices in William's simple statement. The keys to development in Africa will depend largely on the ability of Africans to take the lead in developing strategies to meet their needs. (Aid and development agencies take note: Are you seeking out, developing, listening to, trusting, and employing the William Kamkwambas of Africa?) Children and young people like William will need to be healthy enough to tie poles together and hoist a bicycle high into the air. They will need to be able to read and have access to relevant information. They will have to know that it is appropriate and necessary to take ideas from elsewhere and adapt them to local conditions. They will need confidence and self-discipline. But if you ask them, they know this already. These are lessons the west has not yet mastered.

Al Gore received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his film, books, and lectures on the environment. Warren Buffet has joined Microsoft's founder to establish the world's most richly endowed humanitarian organization, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Jeffrey Sachs has become a rock star-like economist. Now add William Kamkwamba to the list of the forces nourishing a resurgent Africa.

His prize for harnessing a clean source of energy and improving his family's quality of life is even more significant than Gore's Academy Award and Nobel recognition: William has met the needs of his family in a responsible way and is living proof to world leaders, celebrities, non-governmental organizations, and donor countries that there is power and potential in Africa and within Africans.

Al Gore, Warren Buffet, Jeffrey Sachs, Bill and Melinda Gates: meet William Kamkwamba.

You can learn more about William at http://williamkamkwamba.typepad.com and learn more about building the capacities of individuals and organizations throughout the developing world at http://DevelopingCapacities.org