A windmill maker in Africa

TypePad blogger William Kamkwamba's inspirational story was featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal yesterday. After seeing a photo of a windmill in an old textbook, Kamkwamba (who was 14 at the time) built one out of blue-gum trees and bicycle parts for his family's home in Malawi.  In the intervening years (William is now 20), he has built three more windmills in his town and has plans to power more of his country in the future. And he's returned to school, which had been on hold due to prohibitive tuition expenses.

Have a look at the article and his blog. The article contains a video of his life in Malawi, in which William wears a TypePad t-shirt sent to him after his blog was selected for our Featured TypePad series.

His blog gives a wonderful glimpse into his life at home and at school, with photos of his family, fellow students, and teachers.

We send a shout out to the good folks at TED  who introduced William to TypePad after featuring him in their TED Global conference in Arusha, Tanzania last June. You can see William's explanation of how and why he built his first windmill in this interview with Chris Anderson of TED.