TEDxLilongwe

I spent a super inspiring day at TEDxLilongwe yesterday, listening to hemp farmers, solar entrepreneurs, educators, musicians, molecular geneticists, politicians, music festival organisers, helicopter makers and more talk about their ideas for a better Malawi. Thanks to all the organisers and performers for putting on such a great show.

Here's a photo of me sitting in a helicopter made by Felix Kambwiri - one of yesterday's speakers. Felix is a 45-year-old welder, who never went to secondary school. Following in the footsteps of William Kamkwamba, who famously built a working wind turbine out of scrap metal, Felix - having only once before seen a helicopter in real life - decided to build his own using parts from a 125cc motorcycle engine. It doesn't fly yet, but I think it's only a matter of time. Such is his fame, that he's already been featured in the Daily Mail.

Felix's inspiring efforts come against a backdrop of a looming humanitarian crisis here in Malawi, and across much of Southern Africa - as documented by John Vidal in today's Guardian newspaper. Two successive bad harvests are likely to push 8 million Malawians into hunger, malnutrition and greater poverty this year.