A BATH WITHOUT WATER

By Ludwick Marishane

PRE-VIDEO QUESTIONS:

1. In your opinion, is it possible to have a bath without water? Why/Why not?

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2. What would be the benefits of having a bath without water? What would be the
disadvantages?
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3. In your opinion, how would life by different if we didn’t depend on water?

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PROFICIENT – Huérfanos 1160, of. 1101 – (+56 2) 2419 3345 – www.proficient.cl

LISTENING COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS: You are going to listen to a talk by Ludwick
Marishane, A bath without water”. Listen carefully and answer the questions below.

1. What made Ludwick Marishane decide to invent his product?

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2. What stages did he need to go through to get the product to the market?

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3. How did he produce his patent and business plan? Could you have done what he did?
Why? Why not?

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4. Would you use his product? Why/Why not?

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PROFICIENT – Huérfanos 1160, of. 1101 – (+56 2) 2419 3345 – www.proficient.cl

 Ludwick Marishane: A bath without water

So I grew up in Limpopo, on the border of Limpopo and Mpumalanga, a little town called
Motetema. Water and electricity supply are as ________________ 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 ________________. 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 bath?" And I sat, and I was like, "Man, I
would buy that, eh?"

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
_____disease___________ thrive in this environment, the most drastic of which is called
________________. Trachoma is an infection of the eye due to dirt getting into your eye. Multiple
infections of trachoma can leave you permanently blind. The ____________ leaves eight million
people permanently __________ 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.

So after seeing these shocking statistics, I __________ _____ ________, "Okay, even if I'm not just
doing it for myself and the fact that I don't want to bath, 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
________________ 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?

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 ____________ on the cell phone, I'm the youngest patent-holder in the

PROFICIENT – Huérfanos 1160, of. 1101 – (+56 2) 2419 3345 – www.proficient.cl

country, and — ("No more bathing!") — I can't say any more than that. (Laughter) I had invented
DryBath, the world's first ______-________________ lotion. You literally put it on your skin, and
you don't have to bath. (Laughter)

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, __________ __________ 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 __________.
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
_____________ 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.

After seeing that global impact, we ________________ 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.

Having put the product into practice, we are actually now on the ___________ 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 __________
_______. 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
________________, and one thing that really puzzles me is, I did all of this just because I didn't
want to bath. Thank you. (Applause). Taken from www.ted.com

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POST-VIDEO QUESTIONS:

1. Do you consider this to be a good initiative?

2. What is this idea’s main goal?
3. Do you know of any similar ideas or ideas that aim towards the same goal?
4. In your opinion, what difference will this product make to people in Africa and around the
world?
5. What’s your opinion of the “water issue” today?
6. Are you a conscious water user?
7. What do you do to preserve water?
8. Think of some things you can do in order to help water preservation?
9. What’s in your opinion the role governments should have around the issue of water
preservation?
10. What’s your opinion on the role of private companies regarding the preservation of
natural resources?
11. What do you understand by Corporate Social Responsibility?

PROFICIENT – Huérfanos 1160, of. 1101 – (+56 2) 2419 3345 – www.proficient.cl