Q & A with William Kamkwamba, the Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

October 10th, 2009 by bobpayne

As of today, The Boy Who Harnassed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope is #10 on Amazon’s bestseller list.  It is the story of William Kamkwanba who overcame incredible challenges to provide hope for his family and village in Malawi by building a windmill to produce electricity and pump water.  I talked with William and his co-author, Bryan Mealer.

CoHabitat:

The theme of today’s TEDxSMU is “What will change everything?”.  So I’ll ask you that question.  William, what will change everything?

William:

Education and communication.  Change starts when people know more.  So we need to educate people.  But people cannot do things alone.  So we need the ability to communicate to bring people together and the ability to get the information to the people.CoHabitat:

Yesterday, you talked to a group of middle-schoolers.  It was the only talk that got a standing ovation.  Was that your favorite part of the day?

William:

No, actually.  It was nice but the thing that encouraged me the most was that all the speakers were saying basically the same thing; we need for this next generation to step up and think differently.  They have the responsibility for the future.  All the speakers were communicating that same message.

Cohabitat:

Each speaker has their own unique flavor of that message.  What is it that you want us to know?

William:

My story is that everything is possible.  You have to believe in yourself in order to be all that you can be.  Even if things look hard, you can still get your goals accomplished if you believe in yourself.

Cohabitat:

As I was running yesterday, I was thinking about you.  What you accomplished may not seem that tough to most Americans because we have so much available to us.  But you didn’t have the raw materials at hand like we do.  How did you get your first windmill built?

William:

I made the long journey to the junkyard day after day.  And when I went, it wasn’t that I was trying to find a particular thing.  I had to go there looking for anything that was usable.  I made use of whatever I brought home.  That is another lesson I want to communicate.  Many times, what you need isn’t immediately available.  You have to make do with what you have around you.  It is often good enough.

Cohabitat:

Bryan, as you were writing William’s story, what was your take on his motivation?

Bryan:

William never said, “I think I’ll get my family to live off the grid.”  His motivation was just to keep them from pain.  He had a terrible childhood, with the drought, poverty, and famine in Malawi.  He just wanted to get water for them.  But how he accomplished this goal was remarkable.

Cohabitat:

How’s that?

Bryan:

He didn’t accept that it couldn’t be done.  He didn’t listen to his detractors in his village.  And they were all against him at one time or another, by the way.  In the end even his opponents benefited from what he did.

Cohabitat:

What was different about William that made him successful?

Bryan:

Well, first off he wasn’t afraid to risk.  That is big, but you’ve got to understand, William was so poor that he had nothing to lose.  Sometimes we need to risk as if we had nothing to lose.  But what separated William was his tenacity and grit.  80% of success is just showing up.  William kept showing up.  He refused to quit.

Tags: TED, TEDxSMU