Today is Launch Day at Young World Inventors Headquarters! We’ve been working hard since May on an all-new website and five stories that I recorded last winter with Elijah and Abisae, our first African shooters. Today we also launch our Indiegogo campaign, to fund editing and shooting in Africa. Donations are tax deductible, plus you can score some fun perks. We’d be thrilled to get you and a couple of your friends involved in this growing community.
Last winter we shot footage of seven new startups and existing teams. We began collaborations with Kilimanjaro Film Institute and Land O’Lakes International/USAID. We set our sights on broadcast venues and began conversations with three companies in Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya.
I return in September to profile more inventors. One of our inventors is Payan ole-MoiYoi. After graduating from Princeton, this half-Masai inventor got restless in the USA and moved back to Kenya to create the Kenya Stove. The Kenya Stove burns cleaner, helping to reduce lung disease, the second most deadly disease in developing nations, after AIDS. We’ll share more of his story on the blog in coming weeks. Last winter we also met with Sam Zizinga, who’s creating animation with limited tools for a kids’ TV show in Kigali, Rwanda. We shot village women with no education inventing solutions to their in the poorest areas of Tanzania. A series of these broadcast shorts could make invention contagious, with your material and moral support.
You can learn more about the campaign, and our other inventors, at our Indiegogo campaign page. Your financial support will help us hire local shooters and edit the new stories. For field updates from Africa, sign up and donate at Indiegogo. I’ll send exclusive blog posts and video messages to all supporters this fall.