At a recent dinner with a couple of friends, I was introduced to a book called, "The Boy who Harnessed the Wind." The book is actually the memoirs of one William Kamkwamba, a Malawian boy, who is just a month younger than I am. I was super intrigued by this book, as described by my friend, that I made it a point to go buy it. Of course, points made in my head aren't necessarily executed as quickly in real life. But I got there. I managed to buy the book from Kinokuniya in KLCC last week. The book's description (on the back) is as follows:-
"William Kamkwamba was born in Malawi, a country where magic ruled, modern science was a mystery, hunger and drought were a daily reality, and hope and opportunity were hard to find. Faced with crippling adversity and unable to afford the tuition to pursue his passion for science at school, William had a 'crazy' idea.
With only a few old text books and incredible determination, William constructed a crude windmill. This unlikely contraption would prove to be the small miracle that would eventually bring electricity and water to William's village, changing the community and transforming the lives of those around him."
Cool, huh?
It gets even better when reading it. Though I may be one who's prone to hyperbole, I really cannot think of having felt more moved and/or inspired in my life after having just finished (literally 10 minutes ago) the book. This guy overcame pretty much everything. Drought, famine, poverty, no (financial) access to secondary education. The odds were stacked entirely against him. But he came through. And he came through because he possessed two of the greatest traits of the human species - Curiousity and Courage.
The book goes into these things in even more detail. The feeling of despair and hopelessness that a family gets when their maize reserves start to run out. The feeling of only being able to eat a small handful of food each day. The feeling of wtf-ery when your government screws you over. The feeling of loss because you do not get to learn. It's all there. And it's all very powerfully described.
William obliterates all those feelings by going, "Hey, screw this. I'm going to do something different." That's the Courage bit. But what's the 'something different'? That was borne out of his Curiousity. The book describes how he took apart radios and dynamos to see why they worked the way they did, even at a young age. It's one thing to say, "Wow, the iPad is brilliant." It's quite another to go, "Wow, the iPad is brilliant. I wonder how it's done." William's response to the iPad would probably have been the second one. This desire to learn, to understand and to grasp is one of the most important things a human being can hope to acquire. Sure, you could argue that William did it in part because he was impoverished. But that should not take away from the fact that he had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. And, as the saying goes, knowledge is power (not only power but still).
So, from his Curiousity, he borrows a Form 4 text book (he was in Form 1 when he dropped out) and reads it. Indulges himself in it and milks every last droplet of knowledge from it. From there, he learns how to build fuses, transformers, integrated circuits which all culminated in his building of his windmill. Which, as I'm sure you can guess, worked. His family finally got electricity in their home. He would later go on to build an irrigation system for his father's maize crops, thereby eliminating his father's dependence on rain for crops. And that's the thing about this windmill (a sort of proxy for knowledge in this case). Knowledge isn't just power, knowledge is freedom. Knowledge gives you the grounding to be whatever it is you want to be in life. It gives you your roots. Whether you get your wings or not is down to you.
And that's what William did. Driven by hunger, both literally and figuratively, he built his windmill. Not from buying expensive materials or that sort of thing. He went through scraps from factories, from trash cans and all that forms of informal sources to get the hardware he needed. Even if everyone doubted him. Even if everyone thought he was mad. Even if his own parents thought he might have been wasting his time. He had a passion, borne out of his Curiousity, and he pursued it with Courage. As he states in the book, "If the first people to experiment with great inventions such as radios, generators or aeroplanes had been afraid of being arrested, we'd never be enjoying these things today."
I truly believe that if you do things the right way, life tends to fall in place for you. Because William had Curiousity and acted on that Curiousity with Courage, he built his windmill. This windmill was then featured in the Malawi news, which caught the eye of NGOs (hint: Influential White Men) in Malawi and then word boomed out. He was invited to speak at a TED conference in Tanzania in 2007, despite only having Form 1 level education, having only a simple command of English and never having left his village area before. Before he went to the TED conference, he had never slept on a mattress nor had he ever seen a laptop nor had he even known about the interwebs. From that TED conference, he attained scholarships, funding for his projects, recognition for his talents and so on. In short, he attained opportunity. He attained freedom. The lesson that William teaches us all is:- If you really want something, go do it and things will tend to work out for us given time. In his TED talk, he answers a question posed on how he implemented his idea. It goes, "After I drop out from school, I went to library...and I get information about windmill...and I try, and I made it." Magnificent. Everything you needed to know about achieving success. If this guy, who went through so much adversity, can understand all that, the rest of us who are way more fortunate have no excuse to let our fears prevent us from doing something we want.
All in all, a fantastic read. You will be moved by, "The Boy who Harnessed the Wind." If I ran the world, it would definitely be required reading for all Form 1 or equivalent students. To close, here are two videos that are kinda sorta related. The first is a Nike video that encapsulates William's spirit - that Curiousity and Courage, and, indeed, Greatness is not something that is exclusive. The second is William's TED talk in 2007. Go forth and go boldly.
"William Kamkwamba was born in Malawi, a country where magic ruled, modern science was a mystery, hunger and drought were a daily reality, and hope and opportunity were hard to find. Faced with crippling adversity and unable to afford the tuition to pursue his passion for science at school, William had a 'crazy' idea.
With only a few old text books and incredible determination, William constructed a crude windmill. This unlikely contraption would prove to be the small miracle that would eventually bring electricity and water to William's village, changing the community and transforming the lives of those around him."
Cool, huh?
It gets even better when reading it. Though I may be one who's prone to hyperbole, I really cannot think of having felt more moved and/or inspired in my life after having just finished (literally 10 minutes ago) the book. This guy overcame pretty much everything. Drought, famine, poverty, no (financial) access to secondary education. The odds were stacked entirely against him. But he came through. And he came through because he possessed two of the greatest traits of the human species - Curiousity and Courage.
The book goes into these things in even more detail. The feeling of despair and hopelessness that a family gets when their maize reserves start to run out. The feeling of only being able to eat a small handful of food each day. The feeling of wtf-ery when your government screws you over. The feeling of loss because you do not get to learn. It's all there. And it's all very powerfully described.
William obliterates all those feelings by going, "Hey, screw this. I'm going to do something different." That's the Courage bit. But what's the 'something different'? That was borne out of his Curiousity. The book describes how he took apart radios and dynamos to see why they worked the way they did, even at a young age. It's one thing to say, "Wow, the iPad is brilliant." It's quite another to go, "Wow, the iPad is brilliant. I wonder how it's done." William's response to the iPad would probably have been the second one. This desire to learn, to understand and to grasp is one of the most important things a human being can hope to acquire. Sure, you could argue that William did it in part because he was impoverished. But that should not take away from the fact that he had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. And, as the saying goes, knowledge is power (not only power but still).
So, from his Curiousity, he borrows a Form 4 text book (he was in Form 1 when he dropped out) and reads it. Indulges himself in it and milks every last droplet of knowledge from it. From there, he learns how to build fuses, transformers, integrated circuits which all culminated in his building of his windmill. Which, as I'm sure you can guess, worked. His family finally got electricity in their home. He would later go on to build an irrigation system for his father's maize crops, thereby eliminating his father's dependence on rain for crops. And that's the thing about this windmill (a sort of proxy for knowledge in this case). Knowledge isn't just power, knowledge is freedom. Knowledge gives you the grounding to be whatever it is you want to be in life. It gives you your roots. Whether you get your wings or not is down to you.
And that's what William did. Driven by hunger, both literally and figuratively, he built his windmill. Not from buying expensive materials or that sort of thing. He went through scraps from factories, from trash cans and all that forms of informal sources to get the hardware he needed. Even if everyone doubted him. Even if everyone thought he was mad. Even if his own parents thought he might have been wasting his time. He had a passion, borne out of his Curiousity, and he pursued it with Courage. As he states in the book, "If the first people to experiment with great inventions such as radios, generators or aeroplanes had been afraid of being arrested, we'd never be enjoying these things today."
I truly believe that if you do things the right way, life tends to fall in place for you. Because William had Curiousity and acted on that Curiousity with Courage, he built his windmill. This windmill was then featured in the Malawi news, which caught the eye of NGOs (hint: Influential White Men) in Malawi and then word boomed out. He was invited to speak at a TED conference in Tanzania in 2007, despite only having Form 1 level education, having only a simple command of English and never having left his village area before. Before he went to the TED conference, he had never slept on a mattress nor had he ever seen a laptop nor had he even known about the interwebs. From that TED conference, he attained scholarships, funding for his projects, recognition for his talents and so on. In short, he attained opportunity. He attained freedom. The lesson that William teaches us all is:- If you really want something, go do it and things will tend to work out for us given time. In his TED talk, he answers a question posed on how he implemented his idea. It goes, "After I drop out from school, I went to library...and I get information about windmill...and I try, and I made it." Magnificent. Everything you needed to know about achieving success. If this guy, who went through so much adversity, can understand all that, the rest of us who are way more fortunate have no excuse to let our fears prevent us from doing something we want.
All in all, a fantastic read. You will be moved by, "The Boy who Harnessed the Wind." If I ran the world, it would definitely be required reading for all Form 1 or equivalent students. To close, here are two videos that are kinda sorta related. The first is a Nike video that encapsulates William's spirit - that Curiousity and Courage, and, indeed, Greatness is not something that is exclusive. The second is William's TED talk in 2007. Go forth and go boldly.
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