A bath without water
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0:00 - 0:03So I grew up in Limpopo, on the border of Limpopo
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0:03 - 0:06and Mpumalanga, a little town called Motetema.
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0:06 - 0:08Water and electricity supply are as unpredictable
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0:08 - 0:12as the weather, and growing up in these tough situations,
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0:12 - 0:16at the age of 17, I was relaxing with a couple of friends
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0:16 - 0:18of mine in winter, and we were sunbathing.
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0:18 - 0:22The Limpopo sun gets really hot in winter.
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0:22 - 0:25So as we were sunbathing, my best friend next to me says,
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0:25 - 0:28"Man, why doesn't somebody invent something that you can
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0:28 - 0:32just put on your skin and then you don't have to bathe?"
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0:32 - 0:36And I sat, and I was like, "Man, I would buy that, eh?"
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0:36 - 0:39So I went home, and I did a little research,
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0:39 - 0:42and I found some very shocking statistics.
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0:42 - 0:46Over 2.5 billion people in the world today
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0:46 - 0:49do not have proper access to water and sanitation.
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0:49 - 0:51Four hundred and fifty million of them are in Africa,
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0:51 - 0:53and five million of them are in South Africa.
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0:53 - 0:56Various diseases thrive in this environment,
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0:56 - 0:59the most drastic of which is called trachoma.
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0:59 - 1:02Trachoma is an infection of the eye due to dirt
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1:02 - 1:05getting into your eye. Multiple infections of trachoma
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1:05 - 1:08can leave you permanently blind.
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1:08 - 1:12The disease leaves eight million people permanently blind
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1:12 - 1:15each and every year. The shocking part about it
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1:15 - 1:17is that to avoid being infected with trachoma,
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1:17 - 1:19all you have to do is wash your face:
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1:19 - 1:22no medicine, no pills, no injections.
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1:22 - 1:25So after seeing these shocking statistics, I thought to myself,
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1:25 - 1:27"Okay, even if I'm not just doing it for myself
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1:27 - 1:30and the fact that I don't want to bathe, I at least need
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1:30 - 1:33to do it to try to save the world." (Laughter)
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1:33 - 1:38So with my trusty little steed, my Nokia 6234 cell phone --
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1:38 - 1:40I didn't have a laptop, I didn't have Internet much,
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1:40 - 1:43except for the 20-rand-an-hour Internet cafe —
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1:43 - 1:46I did research on Wikipedia, on Google, about lotions,
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1:46 - 1:50creams, the compositions, the melting points, the toxicities --
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1:50 - 1:52I did high school science --
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1:52 - 1:55and I wrote down a little formula on a piece of paper,
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1:55 - 1:59and it looked like the KFC special spice, you know?
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1:59 - 2:01So I was like, okay, so we've got the formula ready.
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2:01 - 2:04Now we need to get this thing into practice.
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2:04 - 2:08Fast forward four years later, after having written
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2:08 - 2:11a 40-page business plan on the cell phone,
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2:11 - 2:13having written my patent on the cell phone,
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2:13 - 2:15I'm the youngest patent-holder in the country,
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2:15 - 2:18and — ("No more bathing!") —
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2:18 - 2:21I can't say any more than that. (Laughter)
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2:21 - 2:25I had invented DryBath, the world's first
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2:25 - 2:27bath-substituting lotion.
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2:27 - 2:32You literally put it on your skin, and you don't have to bathe.
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2:32 - 2:36(Laughter)
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2:36 - 2:39So after having tried to make it work in high school
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2:39 - 2:42with the limited resources I had, I went to university,
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2:42 - 2:45met a few people, got it into practice,
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2:45 - 2:48and we have a fully functioning product that's ready
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2:48 - 2:51to go to the market. It's actually available on the market.
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2:51 - 2:54So we learned a few lessons in commercializing
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2:54 - 2:56and making DryBath available.
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2:56 - 2:59One of the things we learned was that poor communities
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2:59 - 3:01don't buy products in bulk.
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3:01 - 3:03They buy products on demand. A person in Alex
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3:03 - 3:06doesn't buy a box of cigarettes. They buy one cigarette
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3:06 - 3:08each day, even though it's more expensive.
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3:08 - 3:11So we packaged DryBath in these innovative little sachets.
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3:11 - 3:14You just snap them in half, and you squeeze it out.
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3:14 - 3:17And the cool part is, one sachet substitutes one bath
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3:17 - 3:20for five rand.
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3:20 - 3:22After creating that model, we also learned a lot
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3:22 - 3:24in terms of implementing the product.
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3:24 - 3:26We realized that even rich kids from the suburbs
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3:26 - 3:28really want DryBath. (Laughter)
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3:28 - 3:31At least once a week.
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3:31 - 3:33Anyway, we realized that we could save 80 million liters
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3:33 - 3:36of water on average each time they skipped a bath,
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3:36 - 3:39and also we would save two hours a day for kids
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3:39 - 3:42who are in rural areas, two hours more for school,
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3:42 - 3:44two hours more for homework,
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3:44 - 3:47two hours more to just be a kid.
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3:47 - 3:50After seeing that global impact, we narrowed it down
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3:50 - 3:52to our key value proposition,
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3:52 - 3:54which was cleanliness and convenience.
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3:54 - 3:57DryBath is a rich man's convenience
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3:57 - 3:59and a poor man's lifesaver.
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3:59 - 4:03Having put the product into practice, we are actually now
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4:03 - 4:05on the verge of selling the product
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4:05 - 4:08onto a multinational to take it to the retail market,
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4:08 - 4:11and one question I have for the audience today is,
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4:11 - 4:14on the gravel roads of Limpopo,
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4:14 - 4:17with an allowance of 50 rand a week,
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4:17 - 4:21I came up with a way for the world not to bathe.
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4:21 - 4:24What's stopping you? (Applause)
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4:24 - 4:27I'm not done yet. I'm not done yet.
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4:27 - 4:30And another key thing that I learned a lot
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4:30 - 4:31throughout this whole process,
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4:31 - 4:35last year Google named me as one of the brightest young minds in the world.
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4:35 - 4:38I'm also currently the best student entrepreneur
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4:38 - 4:41in the world, the first African to get that accolade,
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4:41 - 4:46and one thing that really puzzles me is, I did all of this
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4:46 - 4:49just because I didn't want to bathe. Thank you.
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4:49 - 4:52(Applause.)
- Title:
- A bath without water
- Speaker:
- Ludwick Marishane
- Description:
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If you had to walk a mile for a jug of water every day, as millions of people do, it's unlikely you'd use that precious water to bathe. Young entrepreneur Ludwick Marishane tells the amazing, funny story of how he invented a cheap, clean and convenient solution: DryBath, the world’s first bath-substituting lotion.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 05:13
Maggie S (Amara staff) edited English subtitles for A bath without water | ||
Jenny Zurawell edited English subtitles for A bath without water | ||
Jenny Zurawell approved English subtitles for A bath without water | ||
Jenny Zurawell accepted English subtitles for A bath without water | ||
Jenny Zurawell edited English subtitles for A bath without water | ||
Ricardo Chikasawa edited English subtitles for A bath without water | ||
Ricardo Chikasawa edited English subtitles for A bath without water | ||
Thu-Huong Ha approved English subtitles for A bath without water |