The most successful Innovation comes from necessity. In life we can do things the hard way or the smart way. This inspiring video of a young man called William Kamkwamba. This young man decided that poverty was real issue for him, but if he were to be educated he could solve his won problem - were back to the same idea of letting people solve their own problems, but providing them the resources to do it.
The trigger for this was - Famine, as good a reason as any, but notice how desperation allows for most unique of responses - survival through any means. Ingenuity is the true test of intelligence in the 22nd Century.
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- Innovation (often) comes from constraint (If you’ve got very few resources, you’re forced to be very creative in using and reusing them.) Africa in some places has almost nothing, add a famine and they really do have nothing.
- Don’t fight culture (If people cook by stirring their stews, they’re not going to use a solar oven, no matter what you do to market it. Make them a better stove instead.) For this example, wind! Africans know how to use wind - everybody is happy!
- Embrace market mechanisms (Giving stuff away rarely works as well as selling it.) Although it doesn't mention as to whether William sold his services,, his efforts were a shining example to mankind.
- Innovate on existing platforms (We’ve got bicycles and mobile phones in Africa, plus lots of metal to weld. Innovate using that stuff, rather than bringing in completely new tech.) Well need I say more!
- Problems are not always obvious from afar (You really have to live for a while in a society where no one has currency larger than a $1 bill to understand the importance of money via mobile phones.) He grew up in the situation.
- What you have matters more than what you lack (If you’ve got a bicycle, consider what you can build based on that, rather than worrying about not having a car, a truck, a metal shop.) William had to either us scrap or build it himself, taking the time to learn how to build it and then actually fixing it within the machine itself.
- Infrastructure can beget infrastructure (By building mobile phone infrastructure, we may be building power infrastructure for Africa.) Water and Electricity, Beauty in Simplicity.
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