com last year, he muttered that it had taken him six years to crack the honour. But when TED Global Conference Director Emeka Okafor got news of a young inventor in rural Malawi, he spent several weeks tracking the 19-year-old down and William Kamkwamba, who had never seen a computer let alone heard about TED, made it onto the world’s most prestigious web conference network a month ahead of Skoll.

At 14, Kamkwamba built an electricity-producing windmill from spare parts and scrap, working from rough plans he found in a library book called Using Energy and modifying them to fit his needs. The windmill he built powers four lights and two radios in his family home.