21 Icons Season 3 to feature Ludwick Marishane

23 Oct 2015

"Success is the ability to pursue your own challenge, to focus only on that challenge." - Ludwick Marishane

21 Icons Season 3 to feature Ludwick Marishane

On 25 October 2015 on SABC 3 at 7:27pm, the short-film series 21 ICONS will feature the eighth icon of its third season: award-winning social student entrepreneur Ludwick Marishane. He is the founder and managing director of Headboy Industries Inc., after having invented DryBath® at the age of 17. He holds a Bachelor of Business Science, majoring in Finance and Accounting at the University of Cape Town.

The 25-year-old from Limpopo, was rated as the best student entrepreneur in the world by the Global Champion of the Global Student Entrepreneurs Awards 2011. That same year, Google named him one of the 12 brightest young minds in the world and TIME Magazine dubbed him one of the "Top 30 under 30 people that are changing the world" in 2013.

This season of 21 ICONS has been envisaged as a tribute to the country's future, shedding the spotlight on youth icons all under the age of 35. Their energy and drive has been captured in coloured portraits; a major departure from previous seasons which featured black-and-white fine arts portraits.

Marishane has been selected for 21 ICONS South Africa Season 3 for his pursuit of a sustainable society through the development of the DryBath® Gel product, the world's first bath-substituting lotion that saves 80 litres of water every application becoming more relevant with global water scarcity, and his role in creating a mindful contribution to youth development.

The innovative no-water cleansing gel is antibacterial and biodegradable. For rural residents in South Africa, where clean water is hard to come by, this has made a world of difference.

DryBath® is an affordable solution to achieve personal hygiene without having to be dependent on stagnant community water infrastructure development and the tedious process of boiling water and bathing over a bucket with copious amounts of soap.

It all started one day while sunbathing during his Grade 11 year in high school. One of his friend's quipped that he was too lazy to bathe and pondered why someone had not come up with an idea to invent something that one can apply to the skin that would eliminate the need to bathe. And Marishane thought, "Why not?"

Within six months, the teenager had devised the formula for the gel and in less than a year, he had written up a 40-page business plan, applied for a patent and launched his start-up, called Headboy Industries.

Marishane sees himself as a visionary and would like Africa to be the first to benefit from his skills. DryBath® was made to cater to poverty-stricken areas in Africa and Asia where clean water is scarce and to prevent illness and death from easily treatable diseases like trachoma, diarrhoea, etc. Earlier this year the United Nations acquired the product for humanitarian aid and relief in destitute and disaster areas.

He philosophises that the youth needs to figure out a problem and if they care enough, obsess about it and pursue and figure out how to solve it.

During a portrait sitting, Marishane tells Van Wyk how his dad ignited his entrepreneurial passion and that combined with a love of science allowed him to indulge his curiosity. He came up with many inventions for different opportunities that he encountered. In Grade 9, he formulated his own biodiesel fuel, invented a 'healthy' cigarette and in Grade 10, Ludwick authored a mobile dictionary and attempted to publish a nationwide security magazine.