William Kamkwamba's Malawi Windmill Blog: Bringing an OLPC XO Laptop to Malawi

[bananas]

William Kamkwamba has a new blog entry - they have gotten some OLPC laptops.

http://williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/williamkamkwamba/2008/03/bringing-an-olp.html

March 22, 2008
Bringing an OLPC XO Laptop to Malawi

Here is an article from the AMD 50x15 foundation newsletter. Dan Shine and Daniel Hanrahan and their team generously donated an OLPC XO Laptop to me during my trip to America. I brought it to my former primary school where my sisters still attend. Since then, OLPC's chairman Nicholas Negroponte has been kind enough to provide some more which I plan to permanently install at the school.

50x15 News Features
From Windmills to the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO Laptop:
An Update on William Kamkwamba
3/13/2008

<snip>

[jwirr]

1. While I think this is great, I wonder if that windmill idea is being used

for more vital needs in these communities? Pumping water to homes? Cooking without using rare fuels?

[bananas]

3. His story was on the front page of the WSJ last December

he has a copy of it on his blog: http://williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/williamkamkwamba/2007/12/article-in-toda.html
There are also some videos on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Kamkwamba&search_type=

edit to add a snip from the WSJ article:

<snip>

Mr. Kamkwamba's wind obsession started six years ago. He wasn't going to school anymore because his family couldn't afford the $80-a-year tuition.

When he wasn't helping his family farm groundnuts and soybeans, he was reading. He stumbled onto a photograph of a windmill in a text donated to the local library and started to build one himself. The project seemed a waste of time to his parents and the rest of Masitala.

"At first, we were laughing at him," says Agnes Kamkwamba, his mother. "We thought he was doing something useless."

The laughter ended when he hooked up his windmill to a thin copper wire, a car battery and a light bulb for each room of the family's main house.

The family soon started enjoying the trappings of modern life: a radio and, more recently, a TV. They no longer have to buy paraffin for lantern light. Two of Mr. Kamkwamba's six sisters stay up late studying for school.

<snip>

[prairierose]

2. with the olpc laptop connected to the internet...

the people of that village could find the plans to build all the windmills they needed. They could find the instructions to build small energy efficient stoves that use less fuel to cook food. They could find the plans for composting toilets to cut down on illness caused by inadequate care in this area. They could find instructions for vegetable gardening and how to irrigate that garden with small but crucial amounts of water. There is so much information available that would help people to make their lives better without relying on NGOs or a government that is incapable of helping them. Knowledge is power.

[diane in sf]

4. Yep, if you have a sixth grade cmmand of English you can access the rest of the world

via the internet. Poor little villages all over the world have no libraries, but they are starting to have cell phones and cheap little computers with internet access.

[Nihil]

5. And the positive feedback cycle in that ...

... is that anyone who manages to learn sufficient English whilst
staying "close to home" will be able to be the local guru, the local
expert not only in computing but in the general interface to the
outside world.

This gives not only hope but access - i.e., the knowledge (albeit for
the few that can operate it = the "high priests") to sort out one's
life without having to grovel to the shitbag corporate exploiters ...