WILLIAM KAMKWAMBA

William Kamkwamba was born in Dowa, Malawi. Due to the severe famine in 2001, his family was unable to pay for his annual school fees and Kamkwamba was forced to drop out of high school. When he was 14 years old, he built an electricity-producing windmill from spare parts and scraps, working off of an image in the book “Using Energy.” Kamkwamba’s story is told in his co-authored text “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope” with Bryan Mealer.  

William graduated from Dartmouth College in 2014 in engineering and environmental studies. He was a Global Fellow for the design firm ideo.org and has spoken at conferences and universities around the world. Most recently, William worked for the WiderNet Project in Chapel Hill, NC to develop appropriate technologies curriculums that focused on allowing youth to bridge the gap between “knowing” and “doing” in Malawi and across the world. William is a TED Fellow and entrepreneur who currently splits his time between the US and Malawi.