Only 2% of Malawi had electricity in 2002, and a 14-year-old sent home from school over $80 in fees built a 5-metre tower from blue gum poles, a broken bicycle and a tractor fan — the dynamo lit four bulbs and two radios, and the village that laughed at it queued to charge phones

Wind turns the blades, the blades turn the bicycle wheel, the wheel’s chain-and-sprocket gearing spins the dynamo fast enough to make useful current. Wired into the family house, the windmill ran four light bulbs and two radios, and William added a car battery to store power for calm days, plus homemade light switches and a circuit breaker built from nails, magnet wire and melted rubber. William, characteristically, responded to demand by upgrading: taller towers, better blades, more machines, including a windmill dedicated to pumping water for irrigation, the original dream that had started with a hungry season.