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William Kamkwamba in the Wall Street Journal

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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