WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.059 So I grew up in Limpopo, on the border of Limpopo 00:00:03.059 --> 00:00:06.068 and Mpumalanga, a little town called Motetema. 00:00:06.068 --> 00:00:08.621 Water and electricity supply are as unpredictable 00:00:08.621 --> 00:00:12.890 as the weather, and growing up in these tough situations, 00:00:12.890 --> 00:00:16.413 at the age of 17, I was relaxing with a couple of friends 00:00:16.413 --> 00:00:18.959 of mine in winter, and we were sunbathing. 00:00:18.959 --> 00:00:22.148 The Limpopo sun gets really hot in winter. 00:00:22.148 --> 00:00:25.332 So as we were sunbathing, my best friend next to me says, 00:00:25.332 --> 00:00:28.381 "Man, why doesn't somebody invent something that you can 00:00:28.381 --> 00:00:32.115 just put on your skin and then you don't have to bathe?" 00:00:32.115 --> 00:00:36.026 And I sat, and I was like, "Man, I would buy that, eh?" NOTE Paragraph 00:00:36.026 --> 00:00:39.561 So I went home, and I did a little research, 00:00:39.561 --> 00:00:42.993 and I found some very shocking statistics. 00:00:42.993 --> 00:00:46.010 Over 2.5 billion people in the world today 00:00:46.010 --> 00:00:49.011 do not have proper access to water and sanitation. 00:00:49.011 --> 00:00:51.134 Four hundred and fifty million of them are in Africa, 00:00:51.134 --> 00:00:53.901 and five million of them are in South Africa. 00:00:53.901 --> 00:00:56.441 Various diseases thrive in this environment, 00:00:56.441 --> 00:00:59.788 the most drastic of which is called trachoma. 00:00:59.788 --> 00:01:02.589 Trachoma is an infection of the eye due to dirt 00:01:02.589 --> 00:01:05.898 getting into your eye. Multiple infections of trachoma 00:01:05.898 --> 00:01:08.582 can leave you permanently blind. 00:01:08.582 --> 00:01:12.315 The disease leaves eight million people permanently blind 00:01:12.315 --> 00:01:15.060 each and every year. The shocking part about it 00:01:15.060 --> 00:01:17.757 is that to avoid being infected with trachoma, 00:01:17.757 --> 00:01:19.630 all you have to do is wash your face: 00:01:19.630 --> 00:01:22.443 no medicine, no pills, no injections. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:22.443 --> 00:01:25.346 So after seeing these shocking statistics, I thought to myself, 00:01:25.346 --> 00:01:27.698 "Okay, even if I'm not just doing it for myself 00:01:27.698 --> 00:01:30.411 and the fact that I don't want to bathe, I at least need 00:01:30.411 --> 00:01:33.051 to do it to try to save the world." (Laughter) 00:01:33.051 --> 00:01:38.004 So with my trusty little steed, my Nokia 6234 cell phone -- 00:01:38.004 --> 00:01:40.859 I didn't have a laptop, I didn't have Internet much, 00:01:40.859 --> 00:01:43.804 except for the 20-rand-an-hour Internet cafe — 00:01:43.804 --> 00:01:46.845 I did research on Wikipedia, on Google, about lotions, 00:01:46.845 --> 00:01:50.582 creams, the compositions, the melting points, the toxicities -- 00:01:50.582 --> 00:01:52.110 I did high school science -- 00:01:52.110 --> 00:01:55.848 and I wrote down a little formula on a piece of paper, 00:01:55.848 --> 00:01:59.220 and it looked like the KFC special spice, you know? NOTE Paragraph 00:01:59.220 --> 00:02:01.709 So I was like, okay, so we've got the formula ready. 00:02:01.709 --> 00:02:04.458 Now we need to get this thing into practice. 00:02:04.458 --> 00:02:08.454 Fast forward four years later, after having written 00:02:08.454 --> 00:02:11.038 a 40-page business plan on the cell phone, 00:02:11.038 --> 00:02:13.137 having written my patent on the cell phone, 00:02:13.137 --> 00:02:15.830 I'm the youngest patent-holder in the country, 00:02:15.830 --> 00:02:18.731 and — ("No more bathing!") — 00:02:18.731 --> 00:02:21.336 I can't say any more than that. (Laughter) 00:02:21.336 --> 00:02:25.078 I had invented DryBath, the world's first 00:02:25.078 --> 00:02:27.864 bath-substituting lotion. 00:02:27.864 --> 00:02:32.197 You literally put it on your skin, and you don't have to bathe. 00:02:32.197 --> 00:02:36.582 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:02:36.582 --> 00:02:39.271 So after having tried to make it work in high school 00:02:39.271 --> 00:02:42.788 with the limited resources I had, I went to university, 00:02:42.788 --> 00:02:45.491 met a few people, got it into practice, 00:02:45.491 --> 00:02:48.543 and we have a fully functioning product that's ready 00:02:48.543 --> 00:02:51.340 to go to the market. It's actually available on the market. 00:02:51.340 --> 00:02:54.266 So we learned a few lessons in commercializing 00:02:54.266 --> 00:02:56.693 and making DryBath available. 00:02:56.693 --> 00:02:59.049 One of the things we learned was that poor communities 00:02:59.049 --> 00:03:01.309 don't buy products in bulk. 00:03:01.309 --> 00:03:03.786 They buy products on demand. A person in Alex 00:03:03.786 --> 00:03:06.180 doesn't buy a box of cigarettes. They buy one cigarette 00:03:06.180 --> 00:03:08.590 each day, even though it's more expensive. 00:03:08.590 --> 00:03:11.236 So we packaged DryBath in these innovative little sachets. 00:03:11.236 --> 00:03:14.126 You just snap them in half, and you squeeze it out. 00:03:14.126 --> 00:03:17.813 And the cool part is, one sachet substitutes one bath 00:03:17.813 --> 00:03:20.023 for five rand. 00:03:20.023 --> 00:03:22.715 After creating that model, we also learned a lot 00:03:22.715 --> 00:03:24.456 in terms of implementing the product. 00:03:24.456 --> 00:03:26.774 We realized that even rich kids from the suburbs 00:03:26.774 --> 00:03:28.962 really want DryBath. (Laughter) 00:03:28.962 --> 00:03:31.145 At least once a week. 00:03:31.145 --> 00:03:33.757 Anyway, we realized that we could save 80 million liters 00:03:33.757 --> 00:03:36.888 of water on average each time they skipped a bath, 00:03:36.888 --> 00:03:39.823 and also we would save two hours a day for kids 00:03:39.823 --> 00:03:42.889 who are in rural areas, two hours more for school, 00:03:42.889 --> 00:03:44.673 two hours more for homework, 00:03:44.673 --> 00:03:47.521 two hours more to just be a kid. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:47.521 --> 00:03:50.168 After seeing that global impact, we narrowed it down 00:03:50.168 --> 00:03:52.532 to our key value proposition, 00:03:52.532 --> 00:03:54.775 which was cleanliness and convenience. 00:03:54.775 --> 00:03:57.407 DryBath is a rich man's convenience 00:03:57.407 --> 00:03:59.777 and a poor man's lifesaver. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:59.777 --> 00:04:03.249 Having put the product into practice, we are actually now 00:04:03.249 --> 00:04:05.293 on the verge of selling the product 00:04:05.293 --> 00:04:08.406 onto a multinational to take it to the retail market, 00:04:08.406 --> 00:04:11.931 and one question I have for the audience today is, 00:04:11.931 --> 00:04:14.204 on the gravel roads of Limpopo, 00:04:14.204 --> 00:04:17.553 with an allowance of 50 rand a week, 00:04:17.553 --> 00:04:21.375 I came up with a way for the world not to bathe. 00:04:21.375 --> 00:04:24.083 What's stopping you? (Applause) 00:04:24.083 --> 00:04:27.029 I'm not done yet. I'm not done yet. 00:04:27.029 --> 00:04:30.094 And another key thing that I learned a lot 00:04:30.094 --> 00:04:31.442 throughout this whole process, 00:04:31.442 --> 00:04:35.527 last year Google named me as one of the brightest young minds in the world. 00:04:35.527 --> 00:04:38.396 I'm also currently the best student entrepreneur 00:04:38.396 --> 00:04:41.152 in the world, the first African to get that accolade, 00:04:41.152 --> 00:04:46.147 and one thing that really puzzles me is, I did all of this 00:04:46.147 --> 00:04:49.783 just because I didn't want to bathe. Thank you. 00:04:49.783 --> 00:04:51.965 (Applause.)