David Sengeh: Cultivating the Daring Audacity Of Young People To Ask & Act Upon Questions
However, what is most amazing is not the set of products Kelvin has developed, but rather his daring audacity to ask and act upon questions that young people seldom dream of in his community. Why couldn’t he make his own battery? How could he repurpose electronic components from products that are found in the trash? For the challenges in our communities, how do we develop a robust local solution?
His ingenuity to understand a problem; his resourcefulness to find the materials, tools, and mentors needed to develop a prototype; and his appetite for risk taking are what make him special -- not the products he has built.
The young people I interact with in Sierra Leone and beyond are ready to make a future different from their parents' present ecosystems. That future starts with a dare to dream, and the use of their creative freedoms to explore solutions to challenges they understand. It is that process of developing prototypes and hacking products that will enable them to learn, become serial inventors, and transformational leaders of their communities. It is part of our task to help smart, but inexperienced youth appreciate the totality of resources at their disposal and to help them aspire ever higher on the basis of real, escalating accomplishments.
-David Sengeh via Beyond the Product: What We Should Be Teaching Young People
