Taylor Wilson has been called “The Boy Who Played With Fusion” by Popular Science magazine. At age 9, Wilson stunned tour guides at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, with his complex understanding of rocket science. At 12, he set out to make a “star in a jar.” By 14, Wilson had become the youngest person to achieve nuclear fusion with a working reactor. Built in his parents’ garage, the deuterium-hurling device is now housed in the physics department of the University of Nevado, Reno.

At TED2013, Wilson made his second appearance on the TED stage, above. Now 19, he arrived with a bold new idea — a way to make nuclear energy safe and portable, on a scale where it has the potential to address the global energy crisis. In today’s talk, Wilson shares his latest innovation — Small Modular Fission Reactors. These reactors are small, meaning that they can be built in factories and shipped around the globe. They run on already-molten material, so meltdowns won’t be an issue. They’re installed three meters underground, making them hard to tamper with, and yet, in the event of a disaster, the core can be drained to a tank underneath, stopping the reaction. And while traditional nuclear power plants run for 18 months before needing refueling, the small-scale versions could run for up to 30 years, after which they could be sealed for discarding.

To hear how these reactors work — and a few potential applications, from bringing carbon-free energy to the developing world to propelling rockets into space — watch this talk.

A year ago, at TED2012, Wilson took the TED stage to talk about the nuclear fusion reactor he created in his basement. “I would like to make the case that nuclear fusion will be … our energy future,” he says in this talk, “Yup, I built a nuclear fusion reactor.” “I’d also like to make the case that kids can really change the world.”

Wilson isn’t the only teenager who has shared an energy innovation on the TED stage. At TEDGlobal 2007, William Kamkwamba answered questions about his incredible creation – a homemade windmill he built at age 14.

Kamkwamba set out to make a windmill to bring electricity to his family’s home in rural Malawi. He got the basic plans from a library book, reimagining the design out of spare parts, like a bicycle frame and plastic pipes. Kamkwamba made significant alterations in the design to improve upon it, adding an extra blade to increase the windmill’s power production. In the end, the windmill created 12 watts of energy – enough to power four lightbulbs and two radios in his family’s home.  At TEDGlobal 2009, he returned to the stage to tell the story in more detail in the talk “How I harnessed the wind.”

After his TED experience, Kamkwamba set his sights on building a bigger windmill to pump water and power irrigation for his entire village. Kwambama’s story was recently the subject of the documentary William and the Windmill, which won the Grand Jury Award at SXSW.

Bill Gross, the founder of Idealab, is an adult now. But in his talk from TED2003, he revealed that he started his first energy company — called Solar Devices — when he was 15 years old, building on what he learned in school about how parabolas could concentrate rays of light onto a single point. At the height of the gas shortage in 1973, Gross developed his own design for a Stirling engine in metal shop.

“I sold the plans for this engine and for this dish in the back of Popular Science magazine, for $4 each,” he says in this talk, “Bill Gross on new energy.” “I earned enough money to pay for my first year of Caltech.”

Want more talks with ideas for energy (regardless of the speaker’s age)? Watch the TED playlist “The End of Oil.” It begins with Wilson’s talk about his nuclear fusion reactor, continues with Donald Sadoway sharing the missing link to renewable energy, and continues with eight more great ideas for moving beyond our reliance on oil.

William Kamkwamba: How I harnessed the wind

William and the Windmill, directed by Ben Nabors and starring TED’s own Tom Rielly, who became Kamkwamba’s mentor, follows Kamkwamba’s journey from his home in Malawi to Dartmouth College, reflecting on the highs and lows of living between two very different cultures. As IndieWire writes in its rave review of the film, “Kamkwamba’s scientific achievement speaks for itself, but the attention he received in its wake is a thornier issue that Ben Nabors turns into a fascinating look at the tricky balancing act of third-world activism.”

William and the Windmill received recognition last night at SXSW alongside Short Term 12, winner of the Grand Jury Award for Narrative Feature. Below, check out stills from William and the Windmill, courtesy of Nabors. And stay tuned to the TED Blog for a Q&A with Kamkwamba.

Director Ben Nabors accepts the Grand Jury Award on Tuesday night at SXSW.

A still from the film: William hard at work on his windmill.

A still from the film: A windmill from afar.

A still from the film: William, deep in contemplation.

Here, watch the film’s trailer:

And head to the Tribeca Film Institute website to read about 5 films that influenced Nabors as he made this doc »

William Kamkwamba built a windmill out of spare parts to provide electricity for his family in rural Malawi, after seeing a similar design in a library book. It’s an incredible story — one that set TEDGlobal 2007 ablaze. William Kamkwamba: How I built a windmill Now, Kamkwamba is the subject of a new documentary, William and the Windmill, which makes its world premiere at the SXSW film festival on Sunday, March 10. It is up for the festival’s Documentary Competition.

Directed by Ben Nabors, William and the Windmill begins with Kamkwamba’s incredible feat of engineering but focuses on what happened after — as Kamkwamba becomes one young man straddling two cultures. It follows him as he travels to TEDGlobal, meets with renewable energy experts in the United States, enrolls in a pan-African high school, publishes a book and founds the nonprofit, Moving Windmills, which aims to bring schools, clean water, solar power and scholarship programs to his area. The film even follows Kamkwamba on a media tour, as he films segments on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Good Morning America.

William and the Windmill is an exploration of how ingenuity ripples out through the world, and the intense pressure that builds as this happens. As Kamkwamba says in the trailer, “My pressure comes when I’m thinking about, ‘Yeah, I did this and I did this. So, now what next?’ Maybe people out there, they’re waiting. Expecting a lot of things from me.”

When Nabor and TED’s own Tom Rielly took to Kickstarter in 2011 to raise the funds to edit this film, pledgers donated more than $111K. So if you’re at SXSW, make sure to see it. And stay tuned to the TED Blog for a Q&A with Kamkwamba and information on when you can see this doc.

In conjunction with the launch of the book’s children’s edition, Kamkwamba’s NGO, Moving Windmills Project, is collaborating with the Pearson Foundation on an initiative to send up to 10,000 children’s books to Wimbe lending library, near Kamkwamba’s village in Malawi — the place where his story began. Each time the book is read online, the library receives one new book. So far there have been over 7,000 readings completed online. Learn more. Kamkwamba is now a sophomore at Dartmouth majoring in Environmental Sciences.

We caught up with illustrator and former Côte d’Ivoire denizen Elizabeth Zunon to ask her about this beautiful new edition.

What about this story touched you?

I was touched by William’s problem-solving mentality during a crisis. He endured the drought and had to drop out of school, but still figured out a way to piece together a solution with determination and only the materials that he had.

How did you decide the style of the illustrations?

I love combining oil painted portraits and collage elements, so I thought that exploring this style would fit perfectly for this book. I am always collecting pieces of colored and textured paper and fabric, and taking photographs. I thought that literally “building” the illustrations with my own found items would reflect Williams searching and building process as well.

How do you think your style and William’s story work together to create a new narrative?

I think that they both demonstrate the process of collecting, altering and piecing together disparate parts. Trusting in oneself and in one’s idea, even before it has been completed or is actually successful, is the key to satisfaction. Having the artwork demonstrate the same notions that the story does only enforces the narrative.

What do you hope young readers will learn from this story?

I hope that they’ll learn that you can build your dreams with the pieces that are already around you — that every positive and negative experience you live through is a puzzle piece for the legacy you will leave to others. Hope, courage and endless possibilities live everywhere!

The TED Blog met with William Kamkwamba shortly after the publication of his autobiography, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. Here, he answers questions about his book, his life story, his plans for the future, and offers some inspiration to others who face poverty and struggle to achieve a dream.

How does it feel to visit a place like New York City, after coming from a place filled with poverty and famine — the place you illustrated so unforgettably in your recently-published autobiography?

There are some things people here take for granted — things that people who live in other parts of the world, like Africa, like my country, Malawi, don’t have. People in Malawi sometimes do not have clean water. Here, people have clean water all the time. When I see this city, and all of the things people have, and I think about all the people in my home country who do not have enough food, I just think, “Oh my God.”

After living through the famine, facing death by starvation, and watching many people in your village starve and develop diseases like cholera, will you ever get used to having clean water and food?

I will always be thinking of the difference between this place and the place I came from. I will always be looking back at the things I’ve gone through, thinking of the struggling people I’ve seen. But maybe if things get better there, I will be able to stop thinking about the difference.

Much of the book centers around your fascination with electricity, and harnessing energy from the environment with low-cost components. Are you still studying electrical engineering?

Yes. Right now I am studying at a high school level. I plan on going into engineering — especially mechanical engineering. I will also be studying electrical engineering.

When you have your degree — or between then and now — what sorts of machines or systems are you planning to build?

Right now I am interested in building a drilling machine. I want to build a machine that can drill wells for water. With this problem of water in many places in Africa, we need to find a solution for how you can dig wells so you can be pumping water from deeper places.

I want to bring clean water to people who do not have it. What I’m trying to do now is think of ways to build a well-drilling machine that is low-cost so people in rural areas can afford it. People in rural places could use the water for irrigation, or for drinking.

Will your well-drill design require electricity?

No. You can either use a small gas engine that does not need much gas, or you can operate it manually. It will be simple. The people can use power if they want, or they can use it by hand if they want.

As I said before, my main plan is to see how I can bring clean water to poor people. Once I finish with the drill, I want to design a pump that can be inserted into the wells they have drilled, so they can use it to pump their water to use for drinking or irrigation.

In your book, you emphasize the importance of maize and tobacco to your family’s farm. With an easy-to-come-by water source and an irrigation system, what else could you grow?

With an irrigation system, you could also grow different vegetables and fruits; you could grow peanuts and soybeans.

By the way — do you have any favorite foods in here in the US?

Yes, but it is hard to say anything specific. In my country, we have the same, same, same, same food to eat, all the time. So, to name one specific food as my favorite is very difficult for me. Most of the food I have tasted from different countries I like. I like pizza. I like cheeseburgers. (Laughs.)

One thing you talk about in your book is the limited extent to which you had interacted with anything outside of your village. Until you were much older, you had never even visited Lake Malawi, which was only hours’ travel away from your home. What did you think of big cities like New York before you visited?

People in my village had this mindset that in big cities like New York, if you are lost or without directions, no one will help you. The first time I came here, I tried to make sure not to walk by myself, because it would be difficult for me if I got lost. But people will help you. The other day I was walking and a man asked me for directions, and I helped him.

Before I came, people always told me it was cold here. When it’s cold in Malawi you can still wear a t-shirt or a long-sleeve shirt. When I came here, I didn’t bring warm clothes. The airport was heated, and when I arrived I said, “This is hot, it’s not cold.” But then when I stepped outside into the air — whoosh, I was freezing! Then I said, “Oh my God, this is very cold.” It was the coldest day for me. I couldn’t believe that it could be that cold.

In your book, there’s a funny story about an experiment you did to try to capture and utilize an unusual, low-cost energy source for cooking. Tell me that story.

Once people in my village found out that I had managed to make electricity with my windmill, people asked me if they could use the electricity for cooking. But there was not enough power from the windmill to use to cook. Also, if I were going to use electricity to cook, I would need to find a cooking coil. But I couldn’t find those types of things.

In one of my science books, I saw they were talking about bio-gas — the ways you can take waste and make energy. It showed a way you can take cow poop and put it in a hot tank, and then you can wait for some time until gas is created. You can then burn the gas for power.

I wasn’t patient enough to wait for a couple of weeks to wait to see what would happen. I wanted to see right away. I said to myself, I can do it faster, instead of waiting for a long time. If what is needed in the bio gas tank is heat, then I can put goat’s poop in a small tank and heat it to make the bio-gas faster. (Laughs.)

So I took one of my mother’s pots and put the goat poop in it. Then I took it and boiled it. I was hoping that the steam that was coming from the pot would be bio gas. I tried to light it to cook with it, but it didn’t work.

My mother was not around at that time — but when she came back she asked me, “What are you doing?” (Laughs.) I said, “I’m boiling sweet potatoes.” She didn’t believe it.

So, that experiment failed.

What did that incident teach you?

Sometimes you can fail in an experiment. But if you fail, you still don’t stop observing that thing, looking for a better way. I am still looking at systems for cooking, but next time I will be patient.

In the beginning of your book, you tell the story of how your father came to meet, and marry, your mother. If I remember, he saw her in the market and said, “Marry me.” By the way, have you been seeing anyone?

Right now, no. Not yet. (Laughs.) But in the future, yes. There’s no hurry.

Are you similar to your father?

In some ways, yes. My father is a strong man. He used to drink a lot. (Laughs.) He would make some trouble, sometimes fight. But no fighting for me. (Laughs.)

One thing that has helped me to become patient and cool is that I grew up with sisters. At school, if some guys would pick on me, I would have no one to defend me. They would say, “Hey! William! If you have money, give it to us!” just because they knew that I couldn’t do anything about it. As I grew up, I learned to say to someone, “These guys are bothering me.”

Being an outsider is a big theme in your book — from bullies like those at school, to those who called you crazy for trying to build a windmill. How did you manage to stay focused on your windmill, even while people were calling you crazy?

To encourage myself, I would look at the picture of the windmill in the book, and I would tell myself, “Somewhere, someone did this thing. If somebody did this thing, I can also do it.” Even then, with people saying I was crazy, I’d say, “OK, say what you’re going to say, but I’m still going to do this thing.” I would not accept to stop doing this thing because of what people were saying.

I believe that people do this all of the time, when somebody is doing a new thing. I remembered Noah in the Bible. When he was making the Ark, people were laughing at him. When I was making the windmill, people were laughing, but I new exactly what I was doing. I had the vision in my mind. I knew I was going to do make a thing that would look like this, act like this.

What do those people say now, seeing your success with the windmill?

They say, “Ah, we just thought you were crazy because we had never seen such a thing in our lives!” When I told them I was building a windmill, they had no idea what a windmill was. I also think people thought I was crazy because I was going into the junkyard, looking through the garbage. (Laughs.)

Talk about what it was like when you first came to TED.

I had no idea what exactly TED was all about, or what to expect. It was also my first time to fly in an airplane or to be away from my home. I was scared, saying to myself, What exactly am I going to do? I was sitting here at TED, watching people talking, not understanding anything.

I had heard about computers before, but only of the type that has a screen that looks like old televisions. In my mind, the desktop computer was what all computers looked like. But it was the first time I had ever seen or heard about a laptop. When I was told that this small thing was a computer, I said, “What?” (Laughs.) “This is a computer? The computer I know of has a biiiig screen! Someone cannot put one in a small bag.”

Then my mentor Tom [Rielly] asked me if I had ever seen the Internet. I said, “No, I have never seen it.” I had heard about the Internet on the radio. People were saying many things about it. But I had no idea about what it could do. So, when Tom told me I could find any information on the Internet, the first thing I did was search Google for windmills. I was amazed that I could find pictures and information — even instructions about how to build windmills. When I built my windmill I just used a book with pictures! I was amazed. Everything I needed to learn had been hidden in the Internet the whole time!

Since you built your windmill, have others in Malawi built windmills?

Yes. There is a man who built a windmill. He hasn’t yet hooked it up to generate electricity, but he has managed to make the windmill part. There are many people who want me to build them a windmill. But because I’m busy with school, I can’t go and help. I’m planning to teach other people how to do it, so if those people want a windmill, they can build one. I have taught my cousin so he can build one now. I have also taught another cousin to do it. More people are waiting to learn.

What was it like telling your whole life story for the first time? You had to look back at a lot of painful experiences, such as one heartbreaking story about your childhood dog.

It was great, but there were some times — remembering the saddest stories — when it was very tough. But at the same time, I was remembering happy, funny stories that happened to me. It was a lot of different moments mixing, things I’ve gone through that were good and bad. Talking about a lot of my life was relaxing, in a way.

Is there anything you regret that happened or that you did in the past?

Yes. I regret the time when I got beaten up. A young guy beat me. I started the fight. I started it for no reason at all. I wanted to fight just so I could test my strength. I regret that I tried to hurt somebody for no reason — just to look for a fight. I guess maybe it was because I was young.

And what is your favorite moment from your story?

One thing that makes me happy to remember is hunting. I am also happy when I think about making toy cars. We also used to make a toy where we could pull each other, like a car. And, of course, the part where I finally hooked up my windmill. I will always remember the time when it was first working: “Chh! Chh!” It was amazing. That makes me happiest.

What do you say to other people who are in a very difficult situation who might want to improve their lives and their community?

I would tell most young people that in life you can go through many difficulties, but if you know what you want to do, if you can focus, and work, then in the end, you will end up doing it. No matter what happens, if you don’t give up, you will still succeed. People can say all kinds of things, but if you know what you’re doing, in the end, you will do it. Everything is possible.

William’s links:
+ William’s blog
+ Moving Windmills, an American NGO supporting his efforts
+ Moving Windmills, a documentary film project
+ Order William’s book from Amazon.com

Watch William Kamkwamba’s talk on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 500+ TEDTalks.

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William Kamkwamba took the stage this morning to tell the story of his young and remarkable life. He explains that two years ago he stood on the TED stage in Arusha, Tanzania and spoke about a windmill that he built himself. That experience, he says, changed his life. Before that, he had never left Malawi and he had never seen the Internet. Kamkwamba tells the audience that in his first appearance at TED his English was not good enough to share his story himself. He recalls saying only a few words

He begins to tell us about his life. “I was just a simple farmer in a country of poor farmers,” he says. There were seven siblings in his family, and he was the only boy. In 2001, there was an awful famine in Malawi. His family ate one meal per day, at night. “We dropped down to nothing,” he explains. In Malawi they must fees to attend secondary school. Kamkwamba’s family could not afford it, so he was forced to drop out. “It was a future I couldn’t accept,” he says. Determined to do anything to receive education, he went to the library and borrowed books, especially those on physics. He couldn’t read much of the English, so he studied the diagrams.

Eventually, he found book called “Using Energy” that described windmill, and decided that this could be used to help his family. He went to the scrap yard to find material. Kamkwamba laughs that many people, including his mother, said he was crazy. He used a bicycle frame, PVC pipes and all manner of other odds and ends and built his windmill. It powered one light at first, and then he installed three more as well as a circuit breaker and switches.

Soon, he says, queues of people started lining up at his house to charge their mobile phones. “I could not get rid of them,” he smiles. The lines led to bloggers, to reporters and finally to TED. “I had never seen an airplane before and never slept in a hotel.

Kamwaba has a poignant final message. He ends his talk by saying, “To all the people out there like me — to the Africans, and the poor, and the struggling, maybe one day you’ll watch this on the Internet: Trust yourself and believe. Whatever happens, don’t give up.”

William Kamkwamba spoke at TEDGlobal 2007, as a shy young man who’d built his family a windmill from scrap. His story captured the world’s attention. Today he walked onstage with confidence to tell his story from that point to this.

@herbkim Google ‘William Kamkwamba’ – sat next to him at dinner last night having no idea he was gonna blow me & the TED audience away this morning

@CosmoCat William Kamkwamba telling how he decided to built his own wind-powered pump to get water and save himself and his family from starving

@beckyblanton Michael Kamkwamba had a dream, made it happen, self-taught in libraries – built his own windmill from scrap. Hope always finds a way.

@frogdesign And the crowd goes wild. Incredible story about hope and invention in Africa from William Kamkwamba.

@ruthannharnisch #TED Fellow William Kamkwamba tells his powerful story – you’ll have to buy his book, “The Boy WHo Harnessed The Wind”http://bit.ly/OQPUG

Photo: William Kamkwamba at TEDGlobal 2009, Session 7: “Radical development,” July 23, 2009, in Oxford, UK. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson

William Kamkwamba, a young Malawi man who designed and built a windmill for his family when he was 14 — and who spoke so memorably at TEDGlobal Africa this June — is profiled on the front page of today’s Wall Street Journal in a story headined “A Young Tinkerer Builds a Windmill, Electrifying a Nation.” Writer Sarah Childress adds detail to the story that Kamkwamba told onstage in Tanzania:

Mr. Kamkwamba’s wind obsession started six years ago. He wasn’t going to school anymore because his family couldn’t afford the $80-a-year tuition.

When he wasn’t helping his family farm groundnuts and soybeans, he was reading. He stumbled onto a photograph of a windmill in a text donated to the local library and started to build one himself.

There’s also a great 2-minute video that shows the updates Kamkwamba has made to his family’s home power system, and talks about what’s next for him:

Video: Writer Sarah Childress from the Wall Street Journal talks to William Kamkwamba, a 20-year-old Malawian who built a windmill to power his family’s home.
Image courtesy Wall Street Journal

Watch William Kamkwamba’s talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.

Read more about William Kamkwamba on TED.com.

NEW: Read the transcript >>

New: Download this talk in high resolution >>

William Kamkwamba: How I built my family a windmill

Chris Anderson: William, hi. Good to see you.

William Kamkwamba: Thanks.

CA: So, we’ve got a picture I think?

(photo of hut on a grassland)

Where is this?

WK: This is my home. This is where I live.

CA: Where? What country?

WK: In Malawi, Kasungu. In Kasungu.

CA: Yeah. Mala. OK. Now, you’re 19 now?

WK: Yeah. I’m 19 years now.

CA: Five years ago you had an idea. What was that?

WK: I want to made a windmill.

CA: A windmill?

WK: Ya.

CA: And- so- what- to power- for lighting and stuff?

WK: Ya.

CA: So what did you do? How did you realize that?

WK: After I drop out from school, I went to library and I read a book that would- Using Energy, and I get information about doing the mill. And I try and I made it.

CA: So- (applause) So you copied- you exactly copied the design in the book.

WK: Ah, no. I just-

CA: What happened?

WK: In fact, a design of the windmill that it was in the book, it have got four -ah- three blades, and mine have got four blades.

CA: The book had three, yours had four.

WK: Ya.

CA: And you made it out of what?

WK: I made four blades just because I want to increase power.

CA: OK.

WK: Ya.

CA: You tested three, and found that four worked better?

WK: Ya. I just-

CA: And what did you make the windmill out of? What did- materials did you use?

WK: I use a bicycle frame, and a pulley, and plastic pipe, what then pulls-

CA: Do we have a picture of that? Can we have the next slide?

(picture of windmill, close up of it rotating)

WK: Ya. The windmill.

CA: And so, and that windmill, what- it worked?

WD: When the wind blows it rotates and generates.

CA: How much electricity?

WK: 12 watts.

CA: And so, that lit a light for the house? How many lights?

WK: Four bulbs and two radios.

CA: Wow.

(two photos of the hut being wired for electricity)

WK: Ya.

CA: And so- (applause) next slide- so who’s that?

(slide of his parents holding radio)

WK: This is my parents, boughting the radio.

CA: So what do they make of- that you were 14, 15 at the time, what do they make of this? They were impressed?

WK: Ya.

CA: And so what’s your- what’re you going to do with this?

WK: Um-

CA: What do you- I mean- do you want to build another one?

WK: Ya, I want to build another one- to pump water and irrigate- irrigation for crops.

CA: So this one would have to be bigger?

WK: Ya.

CA: How big?

WK: I think it will produce more than 20 the watts.

CA: So that would produce irrigation for the entire village?

WK: Ya.

CA: Wow. And so you’re talking to people here at Ted to get people who might be able to help in some way to- to realize this dream?

(slide of Kamkwamba on top of a windmill).

WK: Ya if they can help me- if my, ya.

CA: And as you think of your life going forward, you’re 19 now, do you- do you picture continuing with this dream, working in energy?

WK: Ya. I’m still thinking to work on energy.

CA: Wow. William, it’s a real honor to have you at the Ted conference. Thank you so much for coming.

WK: Thank you.