William Kamkwamba

William Kamkwamba was born on August 5, 1987, in the village of Masitala, located two and a half hours northeast of Malawi's capital. He began his education at Wimbe Primary School, completing the 8th grade, and was then accepted into Kachokolo Secondary School. Due to severe famine in 2001, his family could not afford the $80 annual tuition, and William was forced to leave school a few months later. For five years, he was unable to attend school. At the age of 14, he started borrowing books from a small community library. He borrowed a book titled "Using Energy," which featured windmills on its cover. He decided to build a windmill to power his family's home and eliminate the need for kerosene. His windmill project attracted many visitors from miles away, including Dr. Hartford Mchazime, Ph.D., the deputy director of MTTA, the Malawian NGO responsible for the community library. Thanks to the hard work and fundraising efforts of Dr. Mchazime, William was eventually re-enrolled in school at Madisi Secondary School, where he spent one term before attending the African Bible College Christian Academy, a private preparatory school in the capital, Lilongwe. He completed his first full year of school in June 2008. During the summer of 2008, he studied English at the Regents Language Institute in Cambridge, England. After graduating from the African Leadership Academy in 2010, William studied at Dartmouth College in the United States.