Thursday, October 8, 2009
At 14 years old, William Kamkwamba used a book and a picture to create the first windmill in his village and provide electricity for his family.
UPDATE: He is a 22yr old author now. This is him on The Daily Show.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| William Kamkwamba | ||||
| ||||
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Every so often someone breaks through the barrier. Man is a very capable being. As a whole we should be further along than where we currently find ourselves...I digress
The story is a story of almost unspeakable sadness. A story of failure in grotesque proportions.
It is a horrifying tragedy that only ONE person in Malawi has read a book about windmills. It is even more horrifying that in the 21st Century an entire nation can be so backward and so resistant to knowledge that a teenager who has shown some understanding of basic physics is hailed by the country as a genius.
now I KNOW you're racist. If I read a book about making money with real estate, does it mean I'm gonna actually do what the book said?? How do you know how many people read that book?? LMAO
Can you build a windmill out of only materials that are available to you?
jay,
Like I said -- and you apparentely are unable to grasp -- we are living in the 21st century, on a planet where advanced technology exists and is easily available, where entire nations provide all their citizens with clean water, where there's so much food it is literally falling off the shelves.
Then there's Africa and the country of Malawi, a nation of 25 million, a nation so backward that a simple machine using a mechanism that is a thousand years old seems revolutionary.
How does an nation lag the rest of the world by a thousand years?
You have to ask and answer the questions about Africa's stupefying backwardness.
You have to analyze the factors that make it possible for millions of people to live in such primitive ways.
The kid is NOT Einstein. He's just a kid who looked at a book and copied what he saw. How is it possible for everyone else in the country to maintain such an impenetrable ignorance?
By the way, the chief product of Malawi is tobacco. It is the leading export product. That means Malawi exports lung cancer. Meanwhile, the population suffers from an extraordinarily high rate of AIDS infections.
The expected life span for the people of Malawi is 44.
The country is an abysmal mess. But to avoid the devastating problems the people bring upon themselves, the global media chirps about ONE kid who opened a book. That's grotesque.
jay, you asked:
"Can you build a windmill out of only materials that are available to you?"
I have a degree in mechanical engineering and as a teenager, I built a lot of things. It's simple.
Yo Jay - I learned a very long time ago that there are somethings and some individuals you cannot dignify with a response.
nicki,
Your attitude sums up most of the world's view of Africa -- don't even bother.
Meanwhile, if you and Jay think it's a big deal that a black kid learned a few rudimentary facts about physics, that means you really believe blacks are limited when it comes to learning science.
Actually, the historical record confirms the extraordinarily low achievement of blacks in science.
How do you explain it? Or are you one of those who pretend the record is wrong?