His Life
Born in Kasungu, Malawi, William Kamkwamba is a young schoolboy who comes from a family of farmers who live in the nearby village of Wimbe. William has a talent for fixing radios for his friends and neighbours and spends his free time looking through the local junkyard for salvageable electronic components.
Although he is soon banned from attending school due to his parents' inability to pay his tuition fees, William blackmails his science teacher (who is in a secret relationship with William's sister) into letting him continue attending his class and have access to the school's library where he learns about electrical engineering and energy production.
By the mid-2000s, the family's crops fail due to drought and the resulting famine devastates William's village, leading to riots over government rationing. William's family is also robbed of their already meager grain stores.
People soon begin abandoning the village, and William's sister elopes with his former teacher in order to leave her family "one less mouth to feed".
Seeking to save his village from the drought, William devises a plan to concept prototype which works successfully, but to build a larger windmill, William requires his father, Trywell, to give permission to dismantle the family bicycle for parts, which is the only bicycle in the village and the family's last major asset.
His father believes the exercise futile and destroys the prototype and forces William to toil in the fields.
After William's dog dies of starvation and hope seems lost, William's mother, Agnes, intervenes and urges his father to reconsider. William and his father reconcile after William buries his dog. With the help of his friends and the few remaining members of the village, they build a full-size windmill which leads to a successful crop being sown.
Word of William's windmill spreads and he is awarded a scholarship to attend school, ultimately receiving a degree from Dartmouth College.
Fame
When The Daily Times in Blantyre, the commercial capital, wrote a story on Kamkwamba's wind turbine in November 2006, the story circulated through the blogosphere, and TED conference director Emeka Okafor invited Kamkwamba to talk at TEDGlobal 2007 in Arusha, Tanzania as a guest.
His speech moved the audience, and several venture capitalists at the conference pledged to help finance his secondary education. His story was covered by Sarah Childress for The Wall Street Journal. He became a student at African Bible College Christian Academy in Lilongwe. He then went on to receive a scholarship to the African Leadership Academy and in 2014 graduated from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.
Among other appearances, Kamkwamba was interviewed on The Daily Show on 7 October 2009 (during which he was playfully compared to the fictional hero Angus MacGyver for his impressive scientific ingenuity). In addition, he was invited to and attended the 2011 Google Science Fair introductory meeting, where he was a guest speaker.
Kamkwamba's book, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, was selected as the 2013 "1 Book, 1 Community" title for Loudoun County, Virginia's Public Library system. "1book 1community is a countywide reading program that promotes community dialog and understanding through the shared experience of reading and discussing the same book." Copies of the book were purchased from the A.V. Symington and Irwin Uran Gift Funds.
Kamkwamba is the subject of the documentary film William and the Windmill, which won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary Feature at the 2013 South By Southwest film festival in Austin, Texas.
In 2010, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind was selected as the University of Florida and Boise State University common book, required for all incoming students to read. In 2014, it was selected as the common book at Auburn University and University of Michigan College of Engineering, as well. William made an appearance at each university to discuss his book and life.
In 2013 TIME magazine named Kamkwamba one of the "30 People Under 30 Changing The World".
Kamkwamba is featured in the book Extraordinary People by Michael Hearst and is also the subject of a song from the companion album Songs For Extraordinary People.
In 2014, Kamkwamba received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Environmental Studies from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire where he was elected to the Sphinx Senior Honor Society.
In 2019, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind was adapted into a film, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, who also wrote and directed.