68 pages • 2 hours read
William KamkwambaThe Boy Who Harnessed The Wind
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapter 14 - EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 14 Summary
The library at the primary school is hosting a number of officials who are touring Malawi. They see the windmill and when they learn about William and his journey to build it, they contact Dr. Mchazime. Mchazime works with the Malawi Teacher Training Activity, and after he inspects the windmill, he arranges some publicity for it and for William. During interviews, William refers to his windmill as electric wind.
Soyapi Mumba, a man who works with TED, selects William to attend a conference about innovation. William will have to travel by airplane and stay in a hotel, both experiences that are new to him. While William is preparing to go to the TED conference, Dr. Mchazime works on getting William back into school. He enrolls him in a boarding school nearby. When William starts school, he is both homesick and far behind his fellow students. Many of them tease him about this, but once he shows them the interviews about his windmill, they stop.
When William boards the plane to travel to the TED conference, he is delighted to be seated next to Soyapi Mumba.
Chapter 15 Summary
When William first arrives at the conference, he’s overwhelmed. There, he sees more prosperity, more technology, and more people than he’d ever seen before. What’s more, he hears the English language more than he ever has. Soon, he makes a new acquaintance who helps him prepare his presentation—Tom Rielly. In addition to helping him prepare, Tom guides William around and takes him to other sessions.
Though initially nervous about presenting because of his English, William manages to work through his presentation and receives a standing ovation. He describes his efforts to build the windmill as, “And I try, and I made it” (268). Before the conference ends, Tom helps William raise funds for his education and experiments. He appeals to many American investors, several of whom donate cash on the spot.
The money he raises does go towards his experiments, but he also uses it to improve life in his village after the conference. These improvements include new roofs and wells. He repays Gilbert for the investments he made while they were building the windmill.
In 2007, William visits America. He travels to New York City and California, where he sees a wind farm and decides that of all the things he might want to do next in his life; he need only try to succeed.
Epilogue Summary
The year is 2008. The Malawian president hears of William’s work, and William goes to Chicago for an exhibition on technological innovation. When he returns home, the wind has snapped the blades on his windmill, and the legs of the tower have been devoured by termites. He fixes it, and then finds out that The African Leadership Academy has accepted him as a student. Before he attends the school, he goes to England, where he not only works on his English, but also sees how buildings that are centuries old were constructed. He hopes that Africa will continue to improve.
Chapter 14 – Epilogue Analysis
William’s work on the windmill takes him farther than he ever imagined. He hoped that it would improve life for his family and his village, but once his work is discovered by Dr. Mchazime, it opens up many more doors. Publicity for his project not only paves the way for him to go back to school, but it also catches the eye of Soyapi Mumba, who arranges for William to join a TED conference in Tanzania. From teaching primary school students in the science club, he will go on to teach others about his innovation at a conference.
The conference is a huge success, even though William is nervous about it. He meets people there, like Tom Rielly, who believe in his work with the windmill. His windmill is considered not only innovation, but also art. William raises funds to support his experiments and education, but sends a significant portion of them helping the people of his village in Malawi. This selfless act stems from the belief he developed that he wants to, and needs to, help those in his community.
In the epilogue, William ends The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind with hope. He has renewed hope in his education, in his government, and in the ability of his people to improve their situation. Even after his windmill is finished, he continues to improve it, demonstrating how hope and determination can together empower him—and anyone else—to accomplish great feats.
