Self taught engineer creates windmills and powers his African village.

I just came across this story even though it is an old one but I just had to post it. No conspiracy here, just an uplifting story about how one man can do so much. This guy is truly inspiring.



Forget all that Kony nonsense and focus on good and true stories out of Africa like this one.

reply to post by morningeagle


Here ya go,

It is heart warming, that is the kind of mentality missing from most kids in school.

I am happy for him and hope he did finish his schooling.

Heck, $80 I would help with tuition, hes got talent and a bright future ahead of him.

Thank you for sharing this.

Pretty amazing individual.

Seriously I could never do that in two months with twigs and a couple metal scrapes let alone making a light switch. This man has a good brain and heart. Hes going to do a lot more good soon.

Originally posted by calnorak
It is heart warming, that is the kind of mentality missing from most kids in school.

I am happy for him and hope he did finish his schooling.

Heck, $80 I would help with tuition, hes got talent and a bright future ahead of him.

Learning to be self sufficient and living off the land is not taught in schools for a reason. The reason is to make people dependent on the government. Anyone can learn these things if taught right. Good on him for taking the initiative to do it himself instead of waiting for someone else to do it.

Great story.

This is human spirit and invention well and truly captured in one go - hats off to him and I hope he continues to pioneer and succeed.

Originally posted by morningeagle
I just came across this story even though it is an old one but I just had to post it. No conspiracy here, just an uplifting story about how one man can do so much. This guy is truly inspiring.

Forget all that Kony nonsense and focus on good and true stories out of Africa like this one.

edit on 23-3-2012 by morningeagle because: (no reason given)

With only a mobile phone and a promise of money from his uncle, David Obi did something the Nigerian government has been trying to do for decades: He figured out how to bring electricity to the masses in Africa's most populous country.
It wasn't a matter of technology. David is not an inventor or an engineer, and his insights into his country's electrical problems had nothing to do with fancy photovoltaics or turbines to harness the harmattan or any other alternative sources of energy. Instead, 7,000 miles from home, using a language he could hardly speak, he did what traders have always done: made a deal. He contracted with a Chinese firm near Guangzhou to produce small diesel-powered generators under his uncle's brand name, Aakoo, and shipped them home to Nigeria, where power is often scarce. David's deal, struck four years ago, was not massive -- but it made a solid profit and put him on a strong footing for success as a transnational merchant. Like almost all the transactions between Nigerian traders and Chinese manufacturers, it was also sub rosa: under the radar, outside of the view or control of government, part of the unheralded alternative economic universe of System D.

You probably have never heard of System D. Neither had I until I started visiting street markets and unlicensed bazaars around the globe.

Source:
Excerpt: The Shadow Superpower
Forget China: the $10 trillion global black market is the world's fastest growing economy -- and its future. www.foreignpolicy.com...

star and flag
however we need to keep kony 2012 in mind as it looks like the western powers want to put a stop to this
with their kony manhunt.
after all they especially the US [4.6 percent of the world’s population and 33 percent of global consumption]
can't have africans taking control of lives and resources

www.schillerinstitute.org...
kissingers memo wlym.com...

Originally posted by calnorak
It is heart warming, that is the kind of mentality missing from most kids in school.

I am happy for him and hope he did finish his schooling.

Heck, $80 I would help with tuition, hes got talent and a bright future ahead of him.

The problem is that a "bright future" would take him from where he is needed. That is what many nations call "brain drain". We need the opposite; we need people with the means to help to go to these type of villages and actually be somebody that matters. This guy is more valuable to humanity than any corporate civic engineer.

This kid is awesome and I hope he continues to improves his community.

thank God he didn't visit florida. that hoodie would have got him shot and his future ended by racists like zimmerman.

Forget all that Kony nonsense and focus on good and true stories out of Africa like this one.

You can do both. The good people who are doing good things in Africa get noticed and then they get dead or "recruited" into other things. You can't ignore the people who keep undermining people like this.

reply to post by cuervo


I never said for him to leave his village or any of that. All I said Is the he is bright and should have a good future.

If he gets his education and goes back home and helps the people at home then great.

Not only do I hope this young man has a bright future, but seeing his windmill compared to the wind-farms with the ugly concrete columns, I can't help but feel his version and way of life is far more ecologically friendly, by magnitudes!


f&s

Starred and flagged for this inspiration. This could spread to the world, this is needed. Power for their water, gardens and projects, for equalizing! Blessings for all who succeed in helping others and solving these problems.

reply to post by morningeagle


Wow what news?

So what, caucasians and asians did this centuries and centuries before him. So why is it big news?

Because we expect less of black people, no offence.

I was watching one of South Africas election a few years ago and saw all the ministers jumping up on the seats and throwing their papers in celebration.

If this happened in any white or asian parliament it would be all over youtube with people laughing at them.
So why did no one laugh at the black people?
Because we don't expect much of them, sad but true.

God Bless that kid.

I teared up, at the look on his face when he came to New York. We have it so backwards.

Great work here!!!

Hmmm... yet, here in America, all that I keep hearing from the Right-wing CONservative talking heads is how alternative and clean energy is a WASTE...

And here a village in Africa achieves it, yet we in the U.S. shouldnt attempt it and Obama is wrong to TRY to achieve CLEAN ALTERNATIVE ENERGY according to them.

(Sounds like a case of CONservatives and OIL tycoons in each others pockets scratching each others backs at OUR, and our planets EXPENSE...)

We NEED to achieve CLEAN alternative energy, and NOW!!!

Originally posted by Jace26
reply to post by morningeagle

 

I was watching one of South Africas election a few years ago and saw all the ministers jumping up on the seats and throwing their papers in celebration.

If this happened in any white or asian parliament it would be all over youtube with people laughing at them.
So why did no one laugh at the black people?
Because we don't expect much of them, sad but true.

There are fist fights in some of the parliaments, and in the Commonwealth the Sargent-at-Arms is armed with a GD MACE.

A previous Premier here literally threw stuff across the house a few times.

I think you just haven't been paying attention.

He's a miracle where he comes from, but amongst other engineers in the world, he's just #133452455. He has a choice to make in life. He can dedicate himself to his community where he grew up and to his people where he'll actually mean something and have a direct impact on things. Or he can run off and get sucked up into civilized life and make random parts in a square room for a country he'll never visit. Personally, I think he was better off where he started. Thrusting him out into the world might be too much too fast.

I think his windmill is more beautiful than all our windmills put together.

And another point is that what he did the rest of the villagers could learn to do. But once he gets out into the greater world and starts working with professionals, they'll be making things that his villagers won't be able to do on their own like he did. They'll need a mile-long list of contractors and five million dollars and an office room filled with people to take calls and organize files. None of that is useful to the villagers. We're copying developed country ideas and trying to paste them onto these countries that're too far behind. That just condemns those people to servitude and poverty, never to know what freedom is.

Because remember for a moment that, globally, these people are at the bottom of the pyramid. They lack education, they lack infrastructure, and so on. The best they'll be, on average, in this global world, are laborers struggling to get enough food to pay for what's necessary to live. But if you let them be and teach them to build with what they have, then they can be kings and heroes and rich men and explorers and everything that we're but without our high tech and knowledge. The best they can hope for if they become globalized is to work in a clothing factory making sh** 24/7 for someone that lives in a developed country.

Someone might argue well they could come to america and be homeless. But there's not enough resources in america for the 10's of millions that would sure come here from over there. The end result is that in this world we sell our skills and these people do not high enough skills in a globalized market to be anything much more than laborers in a underregulated environment used to make cheap products.

Just my feelings about it. I admire this guy a lot. It must be have been amazing to see the modern world for him. I can only wonder what went through his head and what's going through his head today. I hope he doesn't forget where he started. The other villagers won't leap ahead at the snap of his fingers.

reply to post by HangTheTraitors

Well achieving clean energy would mean losing a lot of what we have and take for granted.

Higher electricity costs...
Higher food costs...

The list goes on and on.

There're examples of this all throughout our economy.

We've always skirted around responsibility in favor of the conveniences.

For example, I honestly think fish prices should be higher to afford a better cannery work envrionment.

That might be good too if it reduces our catches to sustainable levels.

And having people work is GOOD for them, it's not something they don't benefit from. If by some glitch some canneries close down because people are buying less fish then that's a sign that the industry is at its peak in demand. That means these people should find other jobs and not leech the oceans nor be exploited by society. Helping to put people back to work is GOOD for everyone. I really think that it's society's duty to make sure its members are working or at least involved somehow. It should be seen the same way that health is seen. No job = unhealthy. We need to think more as a community.

And all of these cheap goods we get usually are coming from underregulated places.

We as a collective have turned our awareness of this away from it.

We're playing this system like it's a game but the consequences are flesh and blood. If we all had to live together like a family it wouldn't be as extreme as it's. It's the separation that allows it to continue. But the separation is not our fault. Separation is built into the fabric of this universe: conservation of energy.

My opinion is you cannot remove exploitation, you can only moderate it.