A Reflection Paper on William Kamkwamba
Japanese producers were able to reduce the prices of videocassette recorders (VCRs) from $1300 to in 1977 to $298 in 1984 by emphasizing product design before production and by reducing the number of parts in VCRS.1 It is obviously clear that design plays an important role in product development. It is at the design stage a product’s cost can be either lowered (either by using low priced inputs or reducing the number of parts by standardization) or a product can be differentiated by adding features. Also it is at the design stage that a product’s marketing strategy is decided either as a cost leader (low priced compared to the competitors prices) or differentiated (creating something unique).2 In
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Malawi is an extremely poor country and because of drought people were dying of hunger. Being a poverty stricken country opportunities were difficult to …show more content…
However in 2001 the maize crops failed, plunging the countryside into famine and near social collapse. Despite the surviving a famine in Malawi, young William was determined to find a way to support himself and his family. His inability to pay the eighty-dollar-a-year tuition for his education forced him to drop. This did not shatter his confidence. Still he managed to teach himself on his spare time. His inquisitive nature and love for learning was hard to suppress. He was very determined and did not give up his efforts. At this time he found a book called “Using Energy” and this was the turning point of his life. I find it pretty surprising that he came up with a decision to build a windmill merely looking at diagrams and stuck by his decision till the very end that was very evident since he eventually succeeded in it. He saw diagrams of windmills but he could not even read the English text. From this bit of information, he managed to build his own version from scraps of wire, an old bicycle hub, and flattened PVC pipe for blades by his sheer focus and persistence. Though poor, his determination to achieve never allowed his poverty to shatter his confidence. Over time he clearly identfied what he needed to build the windmill. He adapted things he found in the junkyard, or took odd jobs to get money to buy what he could not make. Sometimes he used to take three or four hours because he
William kamkwamba had a very well set mind and very set ego and he would never give up on his windmill for his windmill he analyzed it and he monitored the aerodynamics of the windmill. William kamkwamba had to dig through hundreds of scraps and
let's go back in time to the island of kahoolawe before the bombing if the united states did not take over illegally the island of kahoolawe wouldn't have been bombed and we would have another island for us. since it got bombed we can't do anything on the island because of the bombs that never exploded if it wasn't for the navy we would have our island still yet and we wouldn't have to rely on the united states of america the land of the crooks. they illegally occupied us. if they ever decide to pull out and leave us stranded it would be over for us that's why i think we would be better of if we didn't get occupied illegally back in the day.
Mr. Smith has decided to use one of the oldest marketing concepts, production. The Production Era is said to have taken place primarily during 1870 to 1930, therefore this concept seems to be very dated. (Fullerton, 1988) This concept believes that consumers are more interested in obtaining a product that is readily available at a good price rather than a quality product with quality features. Mr.
In William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealers’ book The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind the boy who harnessed the wind deals with teenager William Kamkwamba building a windmill in his backyard to produce light for his family’s home and to prevent future famines from ruining their crop. The famines in the book were a huge part of the book and a main drive for Kamkwamba while building the windmill. He described the horrors of famine on page 135 of his book using literary merit to explain how desperate the people most affected by the famine where and how that changed them. This page explained how the economy of Malawi was caving in on itself while the people of Malawi started changing. Thanks to the new change in power that had once helped farmers harvest
Not only was it a new idea to William, but it was new to the village. “The cover featured a long row of windmills, though at the time had no idea what a windmill was,” (Kamkwamba and Mealer, 2016). William had very little education since his family was poverty-stricken, so William resorted to going to the library. When he found a book about energy he had to know more and soon William learned about windmills and what windmills are capable of. While reading the Energy book, William plans how he is going to build his windmill, “If the wind spins the blades of a windmill, and the dynamo works by turning the petals, these two things could work together,” (Kamkwamba and Mealer, 2016).
In The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, the major symbol found in the book is William’s windmill. This symbolizes hope for a better life for his family. “You have a child who can perform wonders. You’ll never complain about kerosene” (205). This quote proves he helped his family in many ways. A better life where they could have electricity and lights. The windmill represents the ambition and determination William has to build the windmill when everyone doubts and makes fun of him. This symbol is talked about all throughout the book, as it is the reason the book was
A numerous amount of these knock offs failed miserably as they were not stable enough to withstand the wind. However, in 1854 a young man named Daniel Halladay had a stroke of genius. One day while Daniel was at his home, he was approached by John Burnham (Halladay’s Revolutionary Windmill”). John had went to Halladay to ask him to find a simple and convenient way for the local townspeople to pump water, since wells were becoming outdated (“Halladay’s Revolutionary Windmill”).Within few months, Halladay had developed a new design for windmills, similar to the Persians. However, his was immensely different not only because it was a vertical windmill, but also because it was able to rotate with the wind (“Halladay’s Revolutionary Windmill”). This allowed the windmill to stay stable during strong winds without the use of walls and also, it gave the windmill the ability to adjust to the speed of the wind and function properly without the need of human interference (“Halladay’s Revolutionary Windmill”). Eventually, Halladay could no longer keep his windmill in the local area. Thousands of residents nationwide began to ask for his windmill to be brought to their front lawns (“Halladay’s Revolutionary Windmill”). This allowed Halladay to begin his own windmill company in which he massed produce his newly sought ought product. Eventually Halladay died as did his company, due to newer windmill
Another quote also shows that people would call him names for always being at the scrap yard to look for pieces. ¨This is the misala from the scrapyard my children spoke about,¨ a fat man answered. ¨His poor mother!¨ (Kamkwamba, 202). Little did they know that he was doing something great that would change their entire country, and benefit everyone. Almost everyone seemed to give up on William except Geoffrey and Gilbert, which helped him along the way with building his windmill. William is the one who came up with the idea of creating the windmill from the idea in his books that he rented. Even his parents gave up on him and were worried about him. But when they found out that his invention actually worked, they were very proud to be his parents. Pretty soon, people started showing up at his house to stare at his windmill in amazement. The people of Malawi were shocked by the
William started borrowing books from a local lending library. He read one book about physics. In another book he learned about how to create energy using the wind. Those books sparked the idea of building a windmill to power his family's home. He built a prototype of the windmill and then went to a nearby scrap yard to get a broken
Using only the diagrams from his most cherished book, “Using Energy”, William built his own windmill from junk yard scraps and eventually supplied his entire family with electricity and water. Inspired by the despair of his countries' situation, William heroically brought hope and opportunity to the entire nation.
He comes from a family of farmers who constantly struggle to pay to provide food and schooling for their children. In his small village outside of Wimbe, “[f]armers ...have always been poor, and not many can afford an education...From the time [they’re] born, [they’re] given a life with very few options. Because of this poverty and lack of knowledge, Malawians found help wherever [they] could ” (6). Throughout his life, William has only known this poverty and lack of options. When he was thirteen, he and his friend Geoffrey disassembled radios in order to discover how they functioned. William consistently relies on improvisation and recycling, such as when he “didn’t have a proper soldering iron to weld the metal pieces to the circuit boards [so] Instead…[he]...took a thick piece of wire and heated it over the kitchen fire until it was red hot, then quickly used it to fuse the metal joints together” (47-48). While pursuing this hobby, he reused materials from around his house for a new purpose and found this tactic to be even more useful in his quest to build a windmill. Moreover, William’s family did not have enough money to buy him the textbooks he needed for school, so his teachers could not be able to help him attain the knowledge of physics and engineering necessary to build the windmill. Instead, William derives the idea to build
In the earlier chapters of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, William finds books in his library to keep him educated after he can’t afford school. The books he finds are science and technology based. After learning different techniques and information about technology, he decides to construct his own windmill. “Standing there looking at this book, I decided I would build my own windmill. I’d never built anything like it before, but I knew if windmills existed on the cover of that book, it meant another person had built them. After looking at it that way, I felt confident I could build one, too.” (Kamkwamba, 169). After William saw an example of a windmill, he decided to be creative and give it a shot himself.
William Kamkwamba (the author of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind) is a young African boy who took on the challenge and created a working windmill in a harsh environment, and little to no resources. Despite the hunger and poverty he took to the challenge and made his town enthusiastic to have new opportunities and goals due to their new achievement. This non-fiction survival story gives people a new perspective towards third world countries. William was a very independent thinker. He did something nobody else wanted to do, and for that, he gave the town a steady flow of electricity.
Buyers in this market are not very weak and powerful. They are few in numbers and can switch to other manufacturers for product quality but number of manufacturers is few and backward integration also seems impossible.
Kamkwamba, after some thought about a bicycle dynamo, his fondness for radios, and the wind levels at his home, decided to create a makeshift windmill. He experimented with a small model using a cheap dynamo and, using this experience, eventually made a functioning windmill that powered some electrical appliances in his family's house. Local farmers and journalists investigated the spinning device and Kamkwamba's fame in international news skyrocketed. A blog about his accomplishments was written on Hacktivate and Kamkwamba took part in the first event celebrating his particular type of ingenuity called Maker Faire Africa, in Ghana in August 2009.[2]Kamkwamba was born in a family of relative poverty and relied primarily on farming to survive. According to his biography, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, his father had been a rough fighting man who changed after discovering the Christian God. A crippling famine forced Kamkwamba to drop out of school, and he was not able to return to school because his family was unable to afford the tuition fees. In a