Radio

Kevin Doe's radio station out of trash

Story by Charlie Butts

Most kids rather carelessly throw lots of stuff in the trash.  Fifteen year-old Kevin Doe of Sierra Leone finds stuff in the trash and built a radio station. The station broadcasts news and music and now Kevin is known as DJ Focus.  He has engaged the help of classmates (average age 12) to report the news every day in his community.

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Kevin Doe makes a radio station out of trash (picture source: informafrica.com)

In order to give the youth of his village a voice, he thought they needed a radio station.  For that, he would need a transmitter.  He went to work figuring out how to make one.  Kevin’s amazing ability to make a transmitter out of junk caught the attention of a fellow countryman, David Sengeh, a graduate student at MIT in the United States.  Sengeh was so impressed that he arranged for Kevin to come to his famous university for three weeks.  Sengeh tapped into the MIT International Developers Initiative, which paid for Kevin’s airfare to the US.   Kevin, who had never previously been further than ten miles from home, made historyby becoming the youngest person to ever come to MIT on that program.

Kevin makes what he needs and so since his community, like one and half billion other people around the globe need electricity, a windmill is to be his next invention.

Sengeh made a video of what Kevin has created and also showed him coming to MIT.  As result of that video, several colleges have offered Kevin a full scholarship to come back to get a full university education.  Check out that video here.

http://www.takingonthegiant.com/2013/05/24/kevin-doe-15-makes-a-radio-station-out-of-trash-now-mit-loves-him/