Making me crazy proud this 13-year-old Kenyan boy, Richard Turere, invented a device to safely scare away lions that were picking off his family’s livestock on the family ranch. He realized one day that the lions were afraid of moving flash lights at night.
With this insight, he collected a large amount of LED lights and connected them to a battery and solar panel that powered their television. He engineered a function where the lights would flash and placed the bulbs on poles located on the perimeter of the livestock enclosure. Makes you think, what have you done with your tv lately?
Any who, the livestock were no longer attacked by the powerful cats in the night and his invention was so successful that it is now widely used in the region. This is so wonderful to read because the lion population in Kenya has been quickly dwindling due to issues such as these along with the evils of poaching and hunting.
His ingenuity got him invited to the 2013 TED Conference in Southern California where he shared his previous ideas that led to him to his invention.
“I did it myself, no one taught me, I just came up with it,” Turere said. “I had to look after my dad’s cows and make sure that they were safe.”
At the TED Conference, he spoke to the crowd:
“A year ago I was a boy in a savannah grassland. I saw planes fly over and I said I’d be inside one day. I had a chance to come by plane for the first time for TED. My dream is to become an aircraft engineer and pilot when I grow up.”
Now if that doesn’t cap off the last day of Black History Month well, I don’t know what could. Inspiring.
