Welcome to this month's E-zine!

I hope you are having a great January and are looking forward to a better, more fun 2010 with a more stable economy! So far business spirits seem high, and we're happy to report our conference business is rocking for 2010 with events in Asia and Europe!

We will be posting some new videos to our website in the next day or so. If you want to see more recent live events, or the very popular rap song STOP: YOU'RE KILLING ME WITH POWERPOINT!, please do.

This month's story is about an unlikely leader... a young man who rose from nowhere to become a global sensation. In following his curiosity and passion, he changed the possibilities and future for his village in Africa.

To me it is a great story of one person making a difference in their own small way, and the snowball effect that can have. It is leadership in action.

I hope you enjoy the story of William Kamkwamba.

Yours in Leadership,

Doug Keeley

Please visit our website at www.themarkofaleader.com

The Winds of Change

"When I started building my windmill, a lot of people in the area thought I am going crazy. But now, most of them appreciate that you can generate electricity through wind…and they want me to help them build their windmills."
- William Kamkwamba

In November 2001, thanks to a deadly mix of drought and flooding, the African nation of Malawi was suffering through its worst famine in decades. At the height of the crisis, nearly 70% of farming families were completely without food and starving.

In the tiny village of Wimbe, 13 year-old William Kamkwamba had been forced to drop out of school, because his farmer parents could no longer afford to send him... let alone even feed their family of nine.

Starvation was everywhere. William was down to one meal a day, his father even less. They had already sold futures on their tiny tobacco crop, in exchange for a bit of corn flour. And by the time the famine ended, the family's savings were gone.

William was clearly an intelligent kid, and his parents wanted him to have an education. But secondary school cost about $100 US – more than half a year's wages for the average Malawian. In the midst of such conditions, it was impossible.

Then, in the library of the local primary school, William came across an intriguing book called Using Energy. On its cover was a picture of windmills being used to produce electricity. William was fascinated.

In Malawi, only city dwellers and the rich have electricity; in rural areas, very few can afford a hookup. Even if they can, they may have to wait for years (decades, in some cases) before the utility crews come.

As a result, while the trading centre in Wimbe had electricity, none of the homes or farms outside the village did. For them, kerosene lamps provided the only light after sunset, and irrigation pumps were too expensive to run.

However one thing that area of Malawi has in abundance... is wind.

So even though he had very limited English, no materials, no tools and no guide except this one book... William decided to build his own windmill to create electricity.

Word by word, the 13-year-old worked out the meaning of the descriptions and diagrams in the textbook. Then he tried to figure out how he could achieve the same thing using whatever materials he could scavenge for the project locally.

He had no tools; he even had to make his own screwdriver and drill.

He melted and reshaped PVC pipes to form blades, attached them to a bamboo pole and raised the contraption into the breeze. Amazingly, it worked…creating enough juice to power a small radio!

Even so, his neighbors mocked the makeshift arrangement.

For his second attempt, he aimed higher. Along with several friends who had joined him, he lashed a broken bicycle to a 4m tower built from wood scraps and branches. The bicycle's chain was used to transfer power from the windmill blades to a generator from the scrap yard…and eventually, to a single light bulb.

This time the whole village turned out to watch. Most of them expected complete failure.

But then the wind began to turn the makeshift blades, faster and faster... and the light bulb blinked on.

The villagers cheered; they could see that, as ungainly as it was, the teenager's contraption had the potential to change their lives.

Over the next four years, while he still could not go to school William continued to improve the system, becoming more inventive all the time.

Still working from textbooks, he wired the building containing his bedroom, and eventually his family's main house as well…even creating his own rudimentary circuit breaker from scraps and nails. For the first time his family had electric lights after sunset, and the potential to irrigate their fields as well.

By 2006, William had become a bit of a celebrity in his region. That's when some local education officials noticed his windmill, and told their colleagues in the state capital.

Soon reporters were making their way to his house... and some influential members of the Internet community started to hear and pay attention, as well.

One of them was Emeka Okafor, the program director for the TEDGlobal 2007 conference – an event that brings together innovators, scientists and thinkers from around the world. Okafor was so impressed by William's innovative spirit that he invited him to attend the conference, held that year in Tanzania.

William went to TED as an observer, not a presenter. But his story and his humble manner were so inspiring that the director asked him to come to stage and share his tale.

In halting English, often struggling for words, he told his story.

And this audience of the brilliant, the knowledgeable and the famous was completely inspired. They gave him a standing ovation.

Since then, a lot has changed for William. The shy 22-year old has become an unexpected media star, charming audiences on several nationally-syndicated TV shows.

He was sponsored to attend a private secondary school and then selected for a two-year program at the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg SA.

His bestselling autobiography, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, (co-written with journalist Bryan Mealer) has been praised by clean-energy advocates including Al Gore.

William's home, and his village, have been transformed as well.

There are now three 10-metre-tall windmills on his family's property, providing electricity that's not only free, but considerably more reliable than Malawi's national power grid. It's used for lighting and TV, and also to power irrigation pumps which have allowed the villagers to double their harvest.

An NGO called Moving Windmills was created to support William and his projects exploring low-cost ways of bringing water and electricity to Malawi's poor farmers. You can find out more about their work at http://movingwindmills.org/.

And William himself? He hasn't stopped at windmills – now he's at work on designing and building a solar-powered steam engine!

They say that necessity is the mother of invention.

I think that for some people, it's also a giant opportunity for leadership.

William Kamkwamba is living proof of that.

"Africa is not a hopeless continent needing rescue. If there's one William Kamkwamba, then there are thousands across the continent. We need to focus our energy and find them and nurture them."
- Bryan Mealer