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Wall Street Journal covers African ingenuity

Written by: G Kofi Annan

Article Overview: Recently the Wall street Journal’s front page, featured one of the most inspiring stories of African ingenuity today.

Wall Street Journal covers African ingenuity

Recently the Wall street Journal’s front page, featured one of the most inspiring stories of African ingenuity today. The front page story, A Young Tinkerer Builds a Windmill, Electrifying a Nation, covers 20-year-old William Kamkwamba, a self-taught Malawian inventor whose make-shift windmills are being used to power his village. Having recently spoken at TED Africa 2007, Mr. Kamkwamba, who also writes a blog, is deservedly getting a lot of attention and hopefully just as much support for his windmill projects. It’s good to see such stories making the front page of such a powerfull business resource.

“I was thinking about electricity,” says Mr. Kamkwamba, explaining how he got hooked on wind. “I was thinking about what I’d like to have at home, and I was thinking, ‘What can I do?’ ”

To meet his family’s growing power needs, he recently hammered in a shiny store-bought windmill next to the big one at his home and installed solar panels. He has another windmill still in its box that he’ll put up at a house 70 miles away in the capital, Lilongwe, where he now goes to school.

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Article Tags: africa, african ingenuity, blog, business resource, capital lilongwe, electricity, front page story, inspiring stories, inventor, solar panels, ted, tinkerer, wall street, wall street journal, windmill projects, windmills



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