Welcome to the Jazz Shapers Podcast from Mishcon de Reya. What you are about to hear was originally broadcast on Jazz FM, however, the music has been cut due to rights issues.
Elliot Moss
Welcome to Jazz Shapers with me, Elliot Moss, bringing the shapers of the business world together with the musicians shaping jazz, soul and blues. My guests today are inventor and author William Kamkwamba and serial entrepreneur Tom Rielly, Co-founders of the Moving Windmills Project, an NGO empowering young change makers in rural Malawi. Having been forced to drop out of school during a famine, 14 year old William's fascination with a photo of a windmill in a library book and how it could pump water drove him to try and solve his family's problems by building his own windmill using cast-off materials from the junkyard. Despite everyone telling him he'd fail, the profound success of William's windmill brought him to the attention of Tom Rielly, creator of the International TED Fellows Programme, which supports young innovators to expand the reach and impact of their ideas. William went on to graduate from the African Leadership Academy, then Dartmouth College in the US, and with Tom's support, William's memoir, ‘The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind’, was followed by a 2019 film of the same name, directed by and starring Chiwetel Ejiofor as William's dad, and now the Royal Shakespeare Company, no less, have adapted William's story into a musical theatre show, arriving in London this month. And meanwhile, William and Tom are developing their Moving Windmills Innovation Centre, a space dedicated to tools, mentorship and international experimentation where young people can create scalable, self-reliant solutions for their communities. It's lovely to have you here. Welcome.
William Kamkwamba
Thank you. It's good to be here.
Elliot Moss
Easy to just, as people do in the world of business and brands, just say, and here's the story. The story is William's life. It is your life, and things happened. Can we just go back, for those people that don't know, and just tell me in 2001, I think it was 2001, what was going on in Malawi? And you were like a 14 year old, I believe?
William Kamkwamba
So in 2001 in Malawi, we experienced a drought. That drought, that led to a famine, the biggest famine in the country's history for many, many years. It was a very devastating famine. It was very hard. A lot of people were starving. A lot of people like died due to famine. So that time, even my family was badly affected by the destruction.
Elliot Moss
And what did you do about it? The young boy, I think of when I was 14, and I have got some children, they've all been 14. They are kids, and they were enjoying school, and they were playing, and they weren't thinking about stuff that was going to happen that was tough, because their childhoods were not tough. What was going on for you?
William Kamkwamba
So during that time when the famine was happening, it was also the same time that I was supposed to study at secondary school. In Malawi, secondary school, you have to pay for school fees. Because of the situation, my parents couldn't afford to pay for my education, I was forced to drop out of school. When I had to drop out of school, I looked at my father, and looking at those dry fields, that wasn't the future that I could have expected. I didn't want to become like my father. I didn't want to become a farmer. It's not that I didn't want to become a farmer because I hate farming, no. I love farming, but I didn't want to become a farmer because of the circumstances that I'm in, which is the case to the majority of the people. They are not farmers by choice. They are farmers because of their circumstances. Their only hope is to grow enough food that they can feed their family, and if they are lucky, they can have surplus that they can send their kids to school. So during that time when I couldn't go to school, I started thinking, what can I do in order to continue with my studies? I decided to start going to the library to read books. I just wanted to keep up with my schoolwork, and during my visit to the library, that's when I came across several books. One of the books that really attracted my attention, it was the book called ‘Using Energy’. It had pictures of the windmill on the cover. When I opened it inside, it said the windmill could pump water and generate electricity. The way it pumped water attracted my attention. I said, if I can build a windmill to pump water, I will start irrigation, growing food two to three times a year. I thought that would be a solution to the problem that we're facing, so that's how I decided to build the windmill.
Elliot Moss
It makes it sound like that's what you would do if you were a 14 year old kid wherever you are in the world. Of course William did that. Nobody believed Tom Rielly that it was actually going to work.
Tom Rielly
Exactly. I mean, when William started tinkering with all this junk in the junkyard, the villagers, you heard, called him crazy and possessed and there's no way you can succeed, and that culture was not, and is not, a stand out, don't stick out, you know, you just revert to the means, and he stuck out by a mile. And given the village's opposition, that could have been one reason he gave up, or the famine, or the drought, or the floods, or the political violence, or the environmental degradation, and he overcame all of those things, despite what the village thought, and this song perfectly encapsulates their views in a not as serious as I just mentioned way.
Elliot Moss
You met William in 2007, I think, is that right?
Tom Rielly
That's correct.
Elliot Moss
And did you know, you see, the thing you described, and William, I'm going to ask you, because I want to find out why you didn't give up, because I want to know what was going on in your head and your heart. What was your impression of William when you first met him, if you can remember that very first time, this emotionally, what did you feel?
Tom Rielly
So, William came to the conference at the behest of my colleague, Emeka, who read about him on a blog, who I'm now good friends with every single person in the chain of William, and he came to the our TED conference in Arusha, Tanzania, and TED allegedly stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, it brings people together to talk about ideas. So I saw this kid standing in the corner looking terrified, and I see myself as a host, so I went over and said, my name is Tom Rielly, who are you? And he said, my name is William Kamkwamba and I said, I know who you are. And we had basically a very halting 15 minute conversation when I, I just had a eureka moment, I was like, this kid can make a huge impact in the world. The first 15 minutes, and I'm not joking, I'm not exaggerating, that's exactly why.
Elliot Moss
But why did you think that, Tom?
Tom Rielly
Because he told me what he did. I had no idea. I mean, I’d read from my friend, I read a little bit, but he explained to me what he did and what the context in the background a little bit and I said, wow, that is a story. If he could share that story with a lot of people, that would be a really good thing. So then I convinced my boss at TED to put him on the stage and he, initially the boss said, no, he doesn't speak English, we don't have time, this is too last minute, blah, blah, blah. And I was not to be deterred. And when he spoke on, well, I'm not going to tell you what he said, because you might want him to say what he said. But let's just say he made a sizable impression. And then after the conference, rather than go home, I went to Malawi.
Elliot Moss
What did you say on that stage, William?
William Kamkwamba
One thing that I said on that stage, uh, it was the, I tried and I made it. And so I was referring to the making of the windmill. When I had like, I got like some information about windmill, I decided like to build it. I went to the junkyard, picking up pieces that I needed for my windmill. And I did try. I made it.
Tom Rielly
This became the leitmotif of the entire conference.
Elliot Moss
I tried, I made it. I made it.
Tom Rielly
Everybody was saying that to each other.
Elliot Moss
But the thing, all this stuff going on around you.
Tom Rielly
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
The political stuff, the, the keep your head below the parapet, the fact you're 14 years old at the time. Do you look back now and go, who was that boy? Do you know that boy?
William Kamkwamba
So sometimes I do, uh, look back, but I’m thinking I'm lucky to have some strong people in my life that inspired me and motivated me because what I was going through could have simply stopped me from achieving what I achieved at that moment. I’m thinking when I started thinking of building the windmill, one other thing, when people are saying like, it won't work, it's not going to happen, uh, maybe this is just like you are going crazy. The one thing that I keep asking myself, what did people think when the Wright brothers were thinking of building an aeroplane, saying that we're going to build a machine that will be flying like a bird. At that time, I think people might think like they were insane. So in myself, I said, if the windmill exists somewhere else in the world, it means, it meant that a human being like me built it. I then also will be able to build the same thing, regardless of what people are saying. Even if I will fail, I'm not going to be the first person to fail. But if I'm not going to do anything with the problem that we are facing right now, nobody else is going to come to solve my problem for me. I still have like to go and do something about it.
Elliot Moss
I think I read somewhere and you'll tell me if I'm right or not, your grandma said, solve your own problems.
William Kamkwamba
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
Is that right?
William Kamkwamba
That's right. Like my grandma is also one of the inspirational person in my life, uh, because in Malawi, there's this division of labour. There's some work they say it's for men, some for women, quote unquote. The work that is considered to be for men, it's the making bricks if you want to build a house. Of course, it's a tough job. They consider that being can be only done by men. But my grandma started doing it on her own. A lot of people are asking her, why are you doing this instead of your husband? Her response really inspired me. She said that when you are caught on fire, you don't wait for somebody to put it off. You are the one, you are first to feel the heat. So if you are feeling the heat, you should try to put it off. And somebody far away, they can see that you are struggling, they can come along and help you. So she was referring that if you have a problem, you know your problem better than anyone else. You should always try to come up with a solution. And other people might come along and help you. But if you don't do anything, nobody is going to solve your problem for you.
Elliot Moss
Stay with me for much more from my guests today. William Kamkwamba and Tom Reilly. They're back in a couple of minutes and I'm sure you've been inspired already, because I have. Much more coming up from them very shortly.
You can enjoy all our former Business Shapers on the Jazz Shapers podcast and you can catch this very programme again, if you pop the words Jazz and Shapers, I know it's complicated, isn't it, into your favourite podcast platform. My guests today are inventor and author William Kamkwamba and serial entrepreneur Tom Reilly, Co-founders of Moving Windmills Project, an NGO empowering young problem solvers in rural Malawi. Um, you were talking earlier, William, and again, I asked you to cast your mind back to being 14. I find listening to you, I mean, and anyone that's seen the movie, anyone that's read the book, and I'm sure people that go and watch the piece of theatre will be very moved. Are you moved or do you distance yourself from your own life and achievements?
William Kamkwamba
I'm moved. I'm also like moved myself. I think one thing, one thing that I'm very excited to have to get my story being told through the, the musical. I'm excited because my goal was like to share my story with the rest of the world. Maybe people might learn something. Completely people, they have like a different background than my own background, but my hope is that my story might inspire them like to do, to do something in their own communities, regardless of what their circumstances might be. I do feel very proud and excited to receive email from a person that I've never met before. I don't even know, say that because of your story, I was able to go back to school. I'm graduating right now, getting my engineering degree, or I started a programme in my community because you inspired me to do so. It's, to me, it's very exciting. And the, seeing now like we can be able to share this, this story with other people in the musical form, to me, it's very, very exciting.
Elliot Moss
Tom, William’s mentioned the word communities a few times and when I was thinking about meeting the two of you, I, I remember something that one of the, uh, people I've worked with says, which is, you help your own communities. That's where it starts. Whatever your technical skill is, you help your own communities, your community, the LGBTQIA plus community, make sure I get that right. Um, you founded two businesses in there. Um, um multiple businesses, actually, but two that I'm aware of, Digital Queers, PlanetOut, for example. What's it like to do stuff for your community, for you? Is it important?
Tom Rielly
Well, yeah. I mean, you have, there's a responsibility. I came of age when the HIV crisis was starting so that, it happened, like it started kind of my senior year of high school and then when I became, you know, a young person leaving, uh, school and leaving my parents' home for the first time, I could see what was happening and I was also terrified. And so I wasn't doing a lot of AIDS service organisations, but I was taking care of my friends who were sick. But out of that came, we're not going to put up with this BS about people not liking us because we're gay, lesbian, etcetera. And I, my friend, Michelangelo Signorile, who's an author and a radio host on Sirius Satellite Radio in America, he inspired me, he said like, like, go get them. And I was part of a movement called Queer Nation. And that was about re-appropriating the word queer and going out in the world and doing stuff like having kiss-ins at the Embarcadero in San Francisco and actions and scrubs. It's very much based on the ACT UP methodology, but about gay rights and stuff. So I was a helper, you know, I was just part of it then. But what I realised is I'm, you know, I had the tech background and I had the queer background and I was like, why don't we like put them together? Because I had friends, a whole community of friends in the tech world. And I went to them and said, like, can you guys come together and help us redo the computer infrastructures of the national queer organisations in America? And they said, yes. And it was like stone soup. Do you know the story of stone soup? Oh, okay. Well, you put a stone.
Elliot Moss
Yes, of course. Yes. Keep adding stuff.
Tom Rielly
So I was the rock and then I got everybody to put in software and hardware and computers. And we had a fabulous party when people looked around at the party and said, oh, I thought you were, or, God, I've always had a crush on him, or, wow, those two are married I had no idea. But we did create a community. And my background, over and over, I've tried to create communities of people. And this is the only way you can change anything.
Elliot Moss
And just on the invention thing, because I'm talking to two of you, serial entrepreneur, inventor. The art, the act of creation for you, the hold on a minute, I've got this idea. I'm going to build a windmill. I'm going to build a community. Did you find in talking to each other that you approached things very similarly or very differently?
William Kamkwamba
It's similarly the way, like, the approaching of, like, doing things. I think afterwards, when you come up with, like, an idea you want to build, like, something, that the certification is that thing that you are working on, like, it worked, like, it solved, like, a problem. To me, it's always when that, like, happened, it's always, like, very exciting because I put up, like, my mind to do this. I'm not, like, looking in terms of what might go wrong, but I'm always, like, what to look like after that thing is being able, like, it's done, it's being, like, achieved.
Elliot Moss
Like a visualisation, basically.
William Kamkwamba
Mm.
Elliot Moss
And for Tom?
Tom Rielly
I would say that we both share this idea of you can think up an idea that's big enough to turn into something and then pursue it against all odds, in his case, way bigger odds than me. In my case, I just had to work really hard and, you know, everyone's like, your gay online service, plan it out that could never work. You'll never get venture capital. You'll never do this. You'll never do that. And I was like, okay, the proof is in the doing it, right? But I think that that ability to come up with the idea and then decide you're going to pursue it no matter what is the mark of an entrepreneur. I think of William as very entrepreneurial. And I've been entrepreneurial since I was a kid. And so I have such respect for his, you know, amazing story and his amazing skills that he inspired me so much and hopefully I did a little bit back. And, but there's so much that I've learned from William that I never would have known if I hadn't met him.
Elliot Moss
When you met William, you had a moment that said, hold on a sec, there's something special about this guy, and, and you just knew.
Tom Rielly
I did.
Elliot Moss
You did. And now we're almost 20 years later and you're still talking to each other, which is good.
Tom Rielly
Longer than that.
Elliot Moss
Longer than that, but it's much more than that, you're working together, you're doing things together. Talk to me a little bit about the early days and the relationship of officially the mentor of William. And then I want to come to William and flip something.
Tom Rielly
Well, one of the things that blew me away about William is how he's in control of his own destiny. He has a sense of what he wants to do. And because he knows, I knew I could help him do what he wanted to do, meaning to share his story with the entire world. And there's a lot of people in the world, young or old, who don't have any idea of what they want. So it's easier to help people that you know are important and my philosophy in life is help the spark plugs. So if I mentored the spark plug, then William's, you know, his story from the book that Bryan Mealer and William Kamkwamba wrote and the other expressions, you know, they've reached at least 200 million people. So I feel like that's an incredibly great investment of my time, let alone the fact that he's part of my family now.
Elliot Moss
How has it changed you, Tom?
Tom Rielly
Well, people are like, oh my God, you've spent so much energy on William. I think, and I was like, do you just not have a brain? I've gotten far more back from William than I've ever given him and I've learned about humility. I've always had, you know, at least middle class resources. I've never, never lacked for food or energy and to me, you know, William's story is an against all odds story of overcoming adversity, but in his case, like really severe adversity only to triumph in the end. And he somehow gave me the sense of that, that exact thing I just said, you know, this idea of overcoming adversity. And I just knew like right away, I knew. Because I've mentored other people before, someone who became the deputy mayor of New York city and stuff and so I've done it, I know what, I know how to do it, but anyway, I become kind of obsessed with the notion of helping him but I was like, we need to go and talk to your parents before we do anything. And so we did. And I was like, what do you want for William? And they said, we want the best education possible. It was like, like every other parent in the entire world. And I was able to help a little bit with that. But the thing I like is we became allies with his family before we, you know, whisked him off to do anything. Because that would have been wrong.
Elliot Moss
And from your perspective, William, once you've experienced famine and you see your family suffering and you're a young kid, everything else, surely, however hard it was at Dartmouth, however hard the challenges have been since all the different things I won't ever know about your life that you've, have been challenging for you. Surely, in the perspective of what is essentially life and death, everything else is easier. Is that true?
William Kamkwamba
Yeah, it's true. I think to me, going through the hunger was one of very difficult, I think I have learned a lot from it. Um, sometimes you just have to stay positive. Or like the challenges that I'm facing nowadays, I'm telling myself that the challenges, sometimes they're just there to strengthen you, to make you grow in everything that you do. As much as you know, if you want to get from point A to point B, as much as you know where that point B is, you're going to always going to get there. Sometimes you have to climb over obstacles or sometimes you have to go around it. But as much as you know, you're going to be able to get there so…
Elliot Moss
And I'm sorry, that is obviously true. But when it's really you and you're having to do that every time, that must be hard. That's exhausting.
William Kamkwamba
It is very hard and I think at some point you might think like, maybe I should just give up.
Elliot Moss
Maybe just put my feet up.
William Kamkwamba
Yeah. Yeah, like give up. I think but…
Elliot Moss
But what stops you? What stops you giving up, William?
William Kamkwamba
What stops me giving up? It's like for the unknown, uh, to me, I quite like unknown. Because when I'm trying to do something, um, if I give up now, I'm not going to know what the outcome that I would have get afterwards. But now if I give it up, I'm not going to be able to know what could have come out of it, uh, because I haven't tried yet. So I do like to get to the end of it and see if it doesn't actually work, it's not like I'm going to be the first person to fail in the world like there are people that have failed before. But once you do like that fail, you learn something through it and next time, if you're going to try like to do it again or do something else, you're going to know which route to take. You know, like this route, maybe because of A, B, C, D, it's not like the lighter route for me. I should try now like this other route. So it's always motivated me and encouraged me to continue trying it out.
Elliot Moss
He just loves to get to know. That's what it is. I've unearthed it finally. That's one of the things he just wants to know. Sorry, Tom.
Tom Rielly
No, I just get discovery is a huge part of William's story that he's learning things from, you know, pieces of junk, from trees, from everything. He is so curious and never stopped being curious.
Elliot Moss
Stay with me for my final chat with my guests today is William Kamkwamba and Tom Rielly. And we've got some Taj Mahal for you too. That's in just a moment, don't go anywhere.
I'm just for a few minutes very lucky because I have Tom and William with me. We've been talking about all sorts of things, um, and obviously this is around the Moving Windmills World and in the Moving Windmills World, there is, of course, the small matter, William, of the piece of musical theatre. It's just been on the first run at Stratford. Uh, you've seen a few, the premiere. What does it feel like to see your, your life in front of you?
William Kamkwamba
It's very exciting, uh, to see it now in the musical, um for, for me like personally, because it's a story about me, reliving the past that was exciting, the past that was hard going through the hunger. Um, but overall, I think I'm very, I’m very happy with the work that the actors have put up, the producers so to see it actually playing and seeing the response from audience, young people coming to watch it, I'm very happy.
Elliot Moss
Not strange, is it not slightly surreal, William? Because I mean, obviously the movie six years ago was a big hit. There's a small thing of the book. I mean, is it, if someone was writing about me, I'd find it like an out-of-body experience. But for you, have you kind of got used to it?
William Kamkwamba
It's, um, it’s not quite getting used to it but I think at the same time, it’s the, you see it at some point being like, is this really happening? You think like you are dreaming, but it's, um, it’s not like, I mean, like to me. But mostly I'm just happy because that was the goal. To me was to share the story with the rest of the world and having this form, telling the story in this form, it's even more like exciting because it's sort of like live people acting up, acting like live there, the emotional. Um, it's a much emotional story, um, seeing what he went through, or building like the windmill, seeing that brings up the memories of me, like doing that work and seeing somebody being able to imitate that on the stage. It's not like very easy thing, but seeing the work that they're doing, I'm happy.
Elliot Moss
Do, do you still feel, or do you feel more pressure now than you have over the years? Does it get bigger, the responsibility you have? Or are you more relaxed in your role as the inventor and the kind of the person in the story and the person having impact?
William Kamkwamba
Uh, I feel more, I feel more relaxed. I think what is making me like to feel more relaxed because I know myself that I can't do everything else by myself, but how do we bring in other people to be able to continue doing like a good work to solve some of the challenges? That's why we are working with a lot of young people with the Moving Windmills right now, wanting to build the innovation centre, a space where we're going to be able to invite young people to do some work. Because to me, what I really want to do with my life, it's like, how can I make impact solving like the problem that people are facing in Malawi or in the, in the world in general? But I think knowing that I can't do anything by myself, but how do we bring in other young people in order to be able to achieve such type of goals?
Elliot Moss
And for you, Tom, here we are bringing you in because you've been involved with William for many, many years. The Moving Windmills Innovation Centre, which William mentioned, movingwindmills.org, I believe is the right URL, I hope, good. Tell me a little bit about the plans for the innovation centre?
Tom Rielly
Well first of all, I think it’s amazing that over 20 years later William is saying the same thing, that he wants to use his story to help others and that’s, we call that positioning in the marketing business. I mean he has stuck to his guns. Most people flip what their goals are like every year or two and it’s not hard to imagine he’s still doing that but it’s, it’s pretty remarkable. Let me say, one of the things, the, the musical, there have been three instantiations in the media of William, right? There’s the book that he co-wrote with Bryan Mealer who was at the time a journalist and if he, if Bryan hadn’t reported on all these events, I never would have known about them. He’s insanely skilled at getting people to share their stories. Um, and then there’s the tutorial adapting the book into a film and that and that kind of shows a more exterior view but the musical, the genre of musical lends itself to emotion, music and it lets you get into the heart of, into people’s hearts and to really understand and to me, you can understand a whole new level of the story but when I look at the top level I see a fable, a true fable that is so resilient that it can manifest in all these different media and make the very difference that William’s hoping for. So Moving Windmills Project, I would say that William had to do everything by himself at the time. He was totally isolated, no support from the village and there’s a lot of other young people like William in Malawi; girls, boys all over the place who have super talent but no access, no opportunity and the one, people who are tinkers and innovators and entrepreneurs and, you know, big thinkers and stuff, that culture is not supported in the Malawian culture very much and so, when William first started talking about this, I, I feel like we’re basically trying to create a William factory, right? And why empower young people with all the skills that William would have gotten if he’d had all the right tools, and all the right support, so they can go back and help their communities and those people can help their communities and the reason why the, Williams’ project is going to work is because we’re building a community. When the young people come in for, you know, whatever sessions, they’ll get really bonded together, they’ll go home that will be on a network, people will share what they’re doing, we’ll keep in touch with them, support them and the whole point is the network is so powerful. In the TED fellows program which I founded, the secret sauce of the program is the other fellows. Fellows volunteer to help each other all the time. They start businesses all the time, they help themselves out emotionally all the time and if you can create that platform that includes the physical campus but also, how do you find them? How do you get them there? How do you teach them? And then, how do you take care of them when they leave? That, that is such a great problem and the community parts are up my alley, right? So, I think there’s a dramatic need for this to exist, right? That’s a good place to start.
Elliot Moss
The dramatic need to exist will remain and I pray that both of you continue to do the things you do, making the impact that you make. Thank you for finding the time to join me today. Just before I let you depart to other parts of the planet perhaps. William, what is your song choice and why have you chosen it? That is your last gift to us.
William Kamkwamba
The song that I chose it’s sung by two Malawian artists, Theresa Phondo, Namadingo, it’s the, sort of like, it’s also like a gospel song, called the Mditayenda Nanu. It’s like when I walk, uh, with him. It’s inspiring in terms of sometimes before like you know like something, you might think something else. Uh, you might find the, you are trying to get to fill in, in the gaps because you don’t know, uh, but once you know, you know that, oh, I think I was missing this, this so that’s an idea 34.26, yeah.
Elliot Moss
Theresa Phondo with Mditayenda Nanu, I hope I said that properly. The song choice of my Business Shaper today, or rather one of them, William Kamkwamba. No one else is going to solve the problems for me, said William. Creating communities is the only way you can change anything, said Tom. And finally, I tried and I made it. The pivotal point from William about the Moving Windmills Project. Fantastic stuff. That’s it from Jazz Shapers, have a lovely weekend.
We hope you enjoyed that edition of Jazz Shapers. You’ll find hundreds of more guests available for you to listen to in our archive. To find out more just search ‘Jazz Shapers’ in iTunes or your favourite podcast platform or head over to mishcon.com/jazzshapers.