Ludwick Marishane: A bath without water

227,652 views ・ 2012-12-04

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:00
Translator: Joseph Geni Reviewer: Morton Bast
0
0
7000
00:15
So I grew up in Limpopo, on the border of Limpopo
1
15260
3059
00:18
and Mpumalanga, a little town called Motetema.
2
18319
3009
00:21
Water and electricity supply are as unpredictable
3
21328
2553
00:23
as the weather, and growing up in these tough situations,
4
23881
4269
00:28
at the age of 17, I was relaxing with a couple of friends
5
28150
3523
00:31
of mine in winter, and we were sunbathing.
6
31673
2546
00:34
The Limpopo sun gets really hot in winter.
7
34219
3189
00:37
So as we were sunbathing, my best friend next to me says,
8
37408
3184
00:40
"Man, why doesn't somebody invent something that you can
9
40592
3049
00:43
just put on your skin and then you don't have to bathe?"
10
43641
3734
00:47
And I sat, and I was like, "Man, I would buy that, eh?"
11
47375
3911
00:51
So I went home, and I did a little research,
12
51286
3535
00:54
and I found some very shocking statistics.
13
54821
3432
00:58
Over 2.5 billion people in the world today
14
58253
3017
01:01
do not have proper access to water and sanitation.
15
61270
3001
01:04
Four hundred and fifty million of them are in Africa,
16
64271
2123
01:06
and five million of them are in South Africa.
17
66394
2767
01:09
Various diseases thrive in this environment,
18
69161
2540
01:11
the most drastic of which is called trachoma.
19
71701
3347
01:15
Trachoma is an infection of the eye due to dirt
20
75048
2801
01:17
getting into your eye. Multiple infections of trachoma
21
77849
3309
01:21
can leave you permanently blind.
22
81158
2684
01:23
The disease leaves eight million people permanently blind
23
83842
3733
01:27
each and every year. The shocking part about it
24
87575
2745
01:30
is that to avoid being infected with trachoma,
25
90320
2697
01:33
all you have to do is wash your face:
26
93017
1873
01:34
no medicine, no pills, no injections.
27
94890
2813
01:37
So after seeing these shocking statistics, I thought to myself,
28
97703
2903
01:40
"Okay, even if I'm not just doing it for myself
29
100606
2352
01:42
and the fact that I don't want to bathe, I at least need
30
102958
2713
01:45
to do it to try to save the world." (Laughter)
31
105671
2640
01:48
So with my trusty little steed, my Nokia 6234 cell phone --
32
108311
4953
01:53
I didn't have a laptop, I didn't have Internet much,
33
113264
2855
01:56
except for the 20-rand-an-hour Internet cafe —
34
116119
2945
01:59
I did research on Wikipedia, on Google, about lotions,
35
119064
3041
02:02
creams, the compositions, the melting points, the toxicities --
36
122105
3737
02:05
I did high school science --
37
125842
1528
02:07
and I wrote down a little formula on a piece of paper,
38
127370
3738
02:11
and it looked like the KFC special spice, you know?
39
131108
3372
02:14
So I was like, okay, so we've got the formula ready.
40
134480
2489
02:16
Now we need to get this thing into practice.
41
136969
2749
02:19
Fast forward four years later, after having written
42
139718
3996
02:23
a 40-page business plan on the cell phone,
43
143714
2584
02:26
having written my patent on the cell phone,
44
146298
2099
02:28
I'm the youngest patent-holder in the country,
45
148397
2693
02:31
and — ("No more bathing!") —
46
151090
2901
02:33
I can't say any more than that. (Laughter)
47
153991
2605
02:36
I had invented DryBath, the world's first
48
156596
3742
02:40
bath-substituting lotion.
49
160338
2786
02:43
You literally put it on your skin, and you don't have to bathe.
50
163124
4333
02:47
(Laughter)
51
167457
4385
02:51
So after having tried to make it work in high school
52
171842
2689
02:54
with the limited resources I had, I went to university,
53
174531
3517
02:58
met a few people, got it into practice,
54
178048
2703
03:00
and we have a fully functioning product that's ready
55
180751
3052
03:03
to go to the market. It's actually available on the market.
56
183803
2797
03:06
So we learned a few lessons in commercializing
57
186600
2926
03:09
and making DryBath available.
58
189526
2427
03:11
One of the things we learned was that poor communities
59
191953
2356
03:14
don't buy products in bulk.
60
194309
2260
03:16
They buy products on demand. A person in Alex
61
196569
2477
03:19
doesn't buy a box of cigarettes. They buy one cigarette
62
199046
2394
03:21
each day, even though it's more expensive.
63
201440
2410
03:23
So we packaged DryBath in these innovative little sachets.
64
203850
2646
03:26
You just snap them in half, and you squeeze it out.
65
206496
2890
03:29
And the cool part is, one sachet substitutes one bath
66
209386
3687
03:33
for five rand.
67
213073
2210
03:35
After creating that model, we also learned a lot
68
215283
2692
03:37
in terms of implementing the product.
69
217975
1741
03:39
We realized that even rich kids from the suburbs
70
219716
2318
03:42
really want DryBath. (Laughter)
71
222034
2188
03:44
At least once a week.
72
224222
2183
03:46
Anyway, we realized that we could save 80 million liters
73
226405
2612
03:49
of water on average each time they skipped a bath,
74
229017
3131
03:52
and also we would save two hours a day for kids
75
232148
2935
03:55
who are in rural areas, two hours more for school,
76
235083
3066
03:58
two hours more for homework,
77
238149
1784
03:59
two hours more to just be a kid.
78
239933
2848
04:02
After seeing that global impact, we narrowed it down
79
242781
2647
04:05
to our key value proposition,
80
245428
2364
04:07
which was cleanliness and convenience.
81
247792
2243
04:10
DryBath is a rich man's convenience
82
250035
2632
04:12
and a poor man's lifesaver.
83
252667
2370
04:15
Having put the product into practice, we are actually now
84
255037
3472
04:18
on the verge of selling the product
85
258509
2044
04:20
onto a multinational to take it to the retail market,
86
260553
3113
04:23
and one question I have for the audience today is,
87
263666
3525
04:27
on the gravel roads of Limpopo,
88
267191
2273
04:29
with an allowance of 50 rand a week,
89
269464
3349
04:32
I came up with a way for the world not to bathe.
90
272813
3822
04:36
What's stopping you? (Applause)
91
276635
2708
04:39
I'm not done yet. I'm not done yet.
92
279343
2946
04:42
And another key thing that I learned a lot
93
282289
3065
04:45
throughout this whole process,
94
285354
1348
04:46
last year Google named me as one of the brightest young minds in the world.
95
286702
4085
04:50
I'm also currently the best student entrepreneur
96
290787
2869
04:53
in the world, the first African to get that accolade,
97
293656
2756
04:56
and one thing that really puzzles me is, I did all of this
98
296412
4995
05:01
just because I didn't want to bathe. Thank you.
99
301407
3636
05:05
(Applause.)
100
305043
2182
About this website

This site will introduce you to YouTube videos that are useful for learning English. You will see English lessons taught by top-notch teachers from around the world. Double-click on the English subtitles displayed on each video page to play the video from there. The subtitles scroll in sync with the video playback. If you have any comments or requests, please contact us using this contact form.

https://forms.gle/WvT1wiN1qDtmnspy7