Malawi windmill boy with big fans

William Kamkwamba educated himself in his local library

By Jude Sheerin BBC News

The extraordinary true story of a Malawian teenager who transformed his village by building electric windmills out of junk is the subject of a new book, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.

Self-taught William Kamkwamba has been feted by climate change campaigners like Al Gore and business leaders the world over.

His against-all-odds achievements are all the more remarkable considering he was forced to quit school aged 14 because his family could no longer afford the $80-a-year (£50) fees.

When he returned to his parents' small plot of farmland in the central Malawian village of Masitala, his future seemed limited.

But this was not another tale of African potential thwarted by poverty.

Many, including my mother, thought I was going crazy - people thought I was smoking marijuana

William Kamkwamba

 

Read more...

What's happening after burning the Egyptian Scientific Institute

What's happening after burning the Egyptian Scientific Institute

Dear all,

I would like to thank all of you for your response to my post on burning the Egyptian Scientific Institute. I really appreciate every message I received about this issue. Today, I would like to share with you a new report by Cybrarians about what's happening after burning the Egyptian Scientific Institute, this report follows up the efforts that started to save the library collections and its restoration. It also has exclusive photos inside the National Library of Egypt where the restoration process is running.

You can access the report at this link: http://bit.ly/uR82Jt .

Best regards


Mahmoud Khalifa
President, Cybrarians: The Arabic Portal for Librarianship and Information
M.A., Information Science, Cairo University
Cel: +2 012 2489 4472
Tel: +2 02 2797 2695
moud@cybrarians.org
http://www.cybrarians.org
\

Related articles

• Egypt's library set on FIRE! (disclose.tv)
• Updated: Egypt Institute Burns; Scholars Scramble to Rescue Manuscripts (news.sciencemag.org)
• The burning of a Library in Egypt and the Philosophy behind it (capitalisthistory.wordpress.com)
• IFLA FAIFA Chair on the burning of the Egyptian Scientific Institute of Cairo (nylibrariansmeetup.blogspot.com)
• A black day for heritage: burning the Egyptian Scientific Institute (nylibrariansmeetup.blogspot.com)
• Deadly Cairo clashes stretch into fourth day (alternet.org)
• Video Shows Egyptian Soldiers Beating and Shooting at Protesters (thelede.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Thousands of Rare Documents Burned in Egypt Clash (abcnews.go.com)
• EGYPT:Cairo protesters set historic library on fire (laaska.wordpress.com)
• Cairo Library in Flames: Are Other Egyptian Monuments too Under Threat? (ibtimes.com)

Protesters tell of saving books from Institut d'Egypte fire | Al-Masry Al-Youm: Today's News from Egypt

Protesters tell of saving books from Institut d'Egypte fire | Al-Masry Al-Youm: Today's News from Egypt

Related articles

• Updated: Egypt Institute Burns; Scholars Scramble to Rescue Manuscripts (news.sciencemag.org)
• Video Shows Egyptian Soldiers Beating and Shooting at Protesters (thelede.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Thousands of rare documents burned in Egypt clash (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Egypt Drops Some Charges Against Blogger (thelede.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Press freedom threats mount in Egypt (guardian.co.uk)
• Thousands of Rare Documents Burned in Egypt Clash (abcnews.go.com)
• What Egypt's Military Doesn't Want Its Citizens to Know (altahrir.wordpress.com)
• Q & A with the Egyptian Information Minister Osama Heikal by Al-Masry Al-Youm©2011 (prosumerzen.net)
• Egypt riots threaten cultural sites as Cairo library goes up in flame - Haaretz (haaretz.com)
• Hosny Mubarak and Wael Ghonim top list of Google's most searched for people in Egypt (thenextweb.com)