the william kamkwamba factor

Kasungu district near Wimbe.

“What we look for from students from a disadvantaged background like Friday’s is: Are they teaching themselves?”

It’s a valid question, but it’s also an extremely tall order. It’s what I call the William Kamkwamba factor.

William Kamkwamba was a teenager from the village of Wimbe in central Malawi whose family was too broke to pay his school fees. So he did something extraordinary: Went to the library, found a book about energy, and built a windmill out of bicycle parts and garbage to provide electricity to his family’s house. He was given a scholarship to the African Leadership Academy and then to Dartmouth.

This is obviously a brilliant mind that deserves a world-class education. But there’s a counterargument that if international universities only accept William Kamkwamba-caliber students, it creates the expectation that Africans have to be superheroes in order to qualify for American universities. “William Kamkwamba built a windmill. Why didn’t Friday Ganizani build a windmill?”

To which I’d respond… did you build a windmill in high school?