So I grew up in Limpopo, on the border of Limpopo and Mpumalanga, a little town called Motetema. Water and electricity supply are as unpredictable as the weather, and growing up in these tough situations, at the age of 17, I was relaxing with a couple of friends of mine in winter, and we were sunbathing. The Limpopo sun gets really hot in winter. So as we were sunbathing, my best friend next to me says, "Man, why doesn't somebody invent something that you can just put on your skin and then you don't have to bathe?" And I sat, and I was like, "Man, I would buy that, eh?"
Odrastao sam u Limpopou, na granici Limpopoa i Mpumalange, u gradiću zvanom Motetema. Opskrba vodom i strujom nepredvidiva je poput vremenskih prilika. Odrastajući u tako teškoj situaciji, kad sam imao 17 godina, opuštao sam se s nekolicinom prijatelja. Bila je zima i sunčali smo se. Sunce u Limpopou zimi postane vrlo jako. Dok smo se tako sunčali, moj je najbolji prijatelj rekao: "Zašto netko ne izumi nešto što možeš samo nanijeti na kožu i onda se ne moraš kupati?" Sjedio sam i pomislio: "Čovječe, kupio bih to."
So I went home, and I did a little research, and I found some very shocking statistics. Over 2.5 billion people in the world today do not have proper access to water and sanitation. Four hundred and fifty million of them are in Africa, and five million of them are in South Africa. Various diseases thrive in this environment, the most drastic of which is called trachoma. Trachoma is an infection of the eye due to dirt getting into your eye. Multiple infections of trachoma can leave you permanently blind. The disease leaves eight million people permanently blind each and every year. The shocking part about it is that to avoid being infected with trachoma, all you have to do is wash your face: no medicine, no pills, no injections.
Otišao sam kući i malo istraživao. Otkrio sam neke vrlo šokatne statistike. Više od 2,5 milijarde ljudi danas nema pravi pristup vodi i sanitarnim uređajima. 450 milijuna njih nalazi se u Africi, a 5 milijuna u Južnoafričkoj Republici. Različite bolesti bujaju u takvoj okolini, a najdrastičnija od njih zove se trahom. Trahom je infekcija oka zbog prljavštine koja uđe u oko. Višestruke infekcije trahomom mogu vas trajno oslijepiti. Bolest trajno osljepljuje 8 milijuna ljudi svake godine. Šokantno je to što, da biste izbjegli infekciju trahomom, morate samo oprati lice: nikakav lijek, tablete ili injekcije.
So after seeing these shocking statistics, I thought to myself, "Okay, even if I'm not just doing it for myself and the fact that I don't want to bathe, I at least need to do it to try to save the world." (Laughter) So with my trusty little steed, my Nokia 6234 cell phone -- I didn't have a laptop, I didn't have Internet much, except for the 20-rand-an-hour Internet cafe — I did research on Wikipedia, on Google, about lotions, creams, the compositions, the melting points, the toxicities -- I did high school science -- and I wrote down a little formula on a piece of paper, and it looked like the KFC special spice, you know?
Nakon što sam vidio te šokantne statistike, pomislio sam: "Čak i ako to ne činim samo zbog sebe i toga što se ne želim kupati, barem bih to trebao učiniti da pokušam spasiti svijet." (Smijeh). Uz pomoć svoje male konjanice, mobitela Nokia 6234, jer nisam imao laptop, a ni internet, osim u internet kafiću za 20 randa po satu -- istraživao sam na Wikipediji i Googleu o losionima, kremama, sastavima, talištima, toksičnosti. Bila je to znanost na razini srednje škole. Zapisao sam malu formulu na komadić papira i izgledala je poput posebnog začina u fast foodu.
So I was like, okay, so we've got the formula ready. Now we need to get this thing into practice. Fast forward four years later, after having written a 40-page business plan on the cell phone, having written my patent on the cell phone, I'm the youngest patent-holder in the country, and — ("No more bathing!") — I can't say any more than that. (Laughter) I had invented DryBath, the world's first bath-substituting lotion. You literally put it on your skin, and you don't have to bathe. (Laughter)
Pomislio sam kako imamo spremnu formulu. Sad je treba provesti u djelo. Četiri godine kasnije, nakon što sam napisao poslovni plan od 40 stranica na mobitelu, kao i patent, najmlađi sam vlasnik patenta u državi, i... ("Nema više kupanja!") Ne mogu reći više od toga. (Smijeh). Izumio sam DryBath, prvi losion na svijetu koji zamjenjuje kupanje. Doslovce ga nanesete na kožu i ne morate se kupati. (Smijeh)
So after having tried to make it work in high school with the limited resources I had, I went to university, met a few people, got it into practice, and we have a fully functioning product that's ready to go to the market. It's actually available on the market. So we learned a few lessons in commercializing and making DryBath available. One of the things we learned was that poor communities don't buy products in bulk. They buy products on demand. A person in Alex doesn't buy a box of cigarettes. They buy one cigarette each day, even though it's more expensive. So we packaged DryBath in these innovative little sachets. You just snap them in half, and you squeeze it out. And the cool part is, one sachet substitutes one bath for five rand. After creating that model, we also learned a lot in terms of implementing the product. We realized that even rich kids from the suburbs really want DryBath. (Laughter) At least once a week. Anyway, we realized that we could save 80 million liters of water on average each time they skipped a bath, and also we would save two hours a day for kids who are in rural areas, two hours more for school, two hours more for homework, two hours more to just be a kid.
Nakon što sam to pokušao primijeniti u srednjoj školi, uz ograničena sredstva, otišao sam na studij, upoznao nekoliko ljudi, praktično ga primijenio i imamo potpuno funkcionalan proizvod spreman za izlazak na tržište. Dostupan je na tržištu. Naučili smo nekoliko lekcija iz komercijalizacije i nastojanja da DryBath učinimo dostupnim. Jedna od stvari koje smo naučili bila je da siromašne zajednice ne kupuju proizvode na veliko. Kupuju ih prema potrebi. Osoba u Alexu neće kupiti kutiju cigareta. Kupit će jednu cigaretu svaki dan, iako je tako skuplje. Zato smo DryBath pakirali u inovativne male vrećice. Pretrgnete ih napola i istisnete ga. Super je to što jedna vrećica zamjenjuje jedno kupanje po cijeni od pet randa. Nakon stvaranja tog modela, puno smo naučili i o primjeni proizvoda. Shvatili smo da i bogata djeca iz predgrađa stvarno žele DryBath. (Smijeh). Barem jednom tjedno. Shvatili smo da možemo uštedjeti 80 milijuna litara vode svaki put kad oni preskoče kupanje, a uštedjeli bismo i dva sata na dan djeci koja žive u ruralnim područjima, dva sata više za školu, dva sata više za zadaću, dva sata više da samo budu djeca.
After seeing that global impact, we narrowed it down to our key value proposition, which was cleanliness and convenience. DryBath is a rich man's convenience and a poor man's lifesaver.
Nakon što smo vidjeli taj globalni učinak, suzili smo ga na našu ključnu vrijednosnu pretpostavku, što je čistoća i praktičnost. DryBath je praktičan za bogate, a siromašnima spašava živote.
Having put the product into practice, we are actually now on the verge of selling the product onto a multinational to take it to the retail market, and one question I have for the audience today is, on the gravel roads of Limpopo, with an allowance of 50 rand a week, I came up with a way for the world not to bathe. What's stopping you? (Applause) I'm not done yet. I'm not done yet. And another key thing that I learned a lot throughout this whole process, last year Google named me as one of the brightest young minds in the world. I'm also currently the best student entrepreneur in the world, the first African to get that accolade, and one thing that really puzzles me is, I did all of this just because I didn't want to bathe. Thank you. (Applause.)
Nakon što smo proizvod primijenili u praksi, sad smo na rubu toga da ga prodamo multinacionalnoj kompaniji koja će ga lansirati na maloprodajno tržište. Pitanje koje danas imam za publiku glasi: na šljunčanim cestama Limpopoa, sa džeparcem od 50 randa tjedno, smislio sam način da se svijet ne kupa. Što sprečava vas? (Pljesak) Još nisam gotov. Naučio sam još jednu ključnu stvar tijekom čitavog ovog procesa, a to je da me prošle godine Google imenovao jednim od najbistrijih mladih umova na svijetu. Također sam trenutno i najbolji student poduzetnik na svijetu, prvi Afrikanac koji je primio to priznanje, a ono što me stvarno zbunjuje jest to što sam sve to učinio samo zato što se nisam želio kupati. Hvala.