Wadongo is currently sharing a world prize with Ted Turner (CNN) and Tim Berners-Lee, the man who in 1989 first made the Internet work. The three are the inaugural winners of the annual Gorbachev Award for “opening up society.”
What did 25-year old Kenyan-born, Kenyan-schooled, still Kenyan resident Wadongo do that elevated him to the table of stars?
He turned dark into light without using fossil fuels or electricity. He’s an engineer. But he didn’t invent gyroscoping drone bombing sensors, or infrared seeking document readers, or nano focused skyscraping beam protectors.
He invented a solar lamp that is cheap and efficient so that hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of poor people can see at night without endangering their health and minuscule budgets with kerosene lamps and fumes.
Do you get it?
A simple, efficient, inexpensive solar lamp is as important as the WorldWide Web and CNN.
Because when the potential of millions of suppressed people is illuminated, the world will change, and I for one, think for better. That’s exactly what’s happening, now.
Whether it’s Wadongo, or Ory Okollah, or Wael Ghonim, the movers and shakers of the world today are increasingly:
1) Kids
2) Optimistic
3) Smart
and above all, 4) Compassionate.
It’s a new world, you old fogies! Not sure how we’re going to deal with these new parameters of life, but we better get ready, because it’s going to be a much different world from the one in which we prospered.