Inspiring Teenager from Sierra Leone turns trash into technology

Meet Kelvin Doe, an inspiring 15 year old from Sierra Leone who repurposes rubbish to create his own electronic gadgets. Known in his community as DJ Focus, because of his belief in focusing the mind to invent new things to better his own life and the lives of those in his community.

Kelvin has attracted the attention of the like of MIT, becoming the youngest person in history to be invited in their ‘Visiting Practitioner’s Program. Kelvin’s story is a fascinating and inspiring one, and well worth a look.

Even in some of the most impoverished places, there are individuals as young as Kelvin who are striving to better their lives and the lives of others around them through the power of technology and engineering.

If you work in a school, play this video to your students!

Check out the other inspirational individuals profiled in THINKR’s bi-weekly PRODIGIES series.

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• http://twitter.com/Sam_f_Heaton Sam Heaton

  This is so uplifting. What a fantastic story of a fantastic young man. An inspiration to all.

• justanotherbod

  This is brilliant. Build your network of friends / co-workers and share by whatever means you can – where I live this could mean using social media, build a wiki to collaborate (and use stuff like wikipedia that is already there), create more ways to share (the library is a foundation of civilisation, perhaps the market is not since it is always rigged by power brokers).

• plumplum

  Fantastic…
  Not completely beyond the bounds of possibility that a youngster, presently fossiking around in a dumpster in Durban will one day be responsible for some magical technological breakthrough..(Not to be taken as justifying such conditions.)

• d’Albert Matlhoko

  How I ENVY this young ‘DOE’, the Lad who expresses an assertive inventive streak in the face of the adversity of the African Landscape ! He does indeed, even in the Age of life-style superlatives coming from the Orient and ‘mighty awesome ‘North-plus-West, Pliny The Elder statement does still hold true that “Ex-Afrique aliquid novi” and ’something new does indeed still come out of Africa’ !! I wish him a long life of even more successful inventing and ‘Fame , Fortune and Feminine diversion’ do not distract him and ‘The Doe’ matures into something even greater !