Keynote speaker and innovation entrepreneur
Entrepreneurs, sustainability leaders, youth programmes, innovation departments, universities, development organisations, and conferences focused on problem solving and social impact
Ludwick Marishane is the founder and Managing Director of Headboy Industries Inc., internationally recognised for inventing DryBath at just seventeen years old. Today, he leads the company’s strategy validation, business development, and organisational culture, ensuring teams remain both mindful and disciplined as they build solutions that advance global hygiene and sustainability.
In 2011, Ludwick was named the Best Student Entrepreneur in the World after winning the Global Student Entrepreneurs Awards, and that same year Google listed him among the twelve brightest young minds on the planet. His work is fuelled by a commitment to creating a more sustainable society—one in which individuals can thrive without the constraints of basic survival needs. He believes that true success is the freedom to do meaningful work without the burden of securing basic necessities, defining joy as the ability to rise to a challenge with purpose.
DryBath began as his response to a global hygiene problem, where families in water scarce regions were spending significant amounts of money on bottled water simply to bathe. Ludwick envisioned a new category in hygiene and a business model that could serve both low income communities and mainstream retail markets. The innovation journey—documented widely—demonstrates his resilience, the importance of focusing on the “why,” and the value of maintaining clarity on long term goals despite obstacles.
Ludwick Marishane is the founder MD of Headboy Industries Inc., after having invented DryBath at the age of 17. He is responsible for Strategy Validation, Global & Local Business Development and keeping everyone ‘mindful’ and ‘disciplined’.
In 2011, he was rates as the ‘Best Student Entrepreneur’ in the world (Global Champion of the Global Student Entrepreneurs Awards 2011). That same year, Google named him as one of the 12 brightest young minds in the world.
At the heart of his being is the pursuit of a sustainable society. A sustainable society, Ludwick Marishane says, is a successful one and that segues elegantly into our discussion. Like most young people in their formative years, success originally was defined by money. But the more successful he’s become, the more his definition has matured.
“Success is actually being able to do what you want to, and what you find joy in doing, without the burden of providing food for your family.”
Pretty impressive for a man under the age of thirty. I like the notion of linking success and joy. He defines his joy as rising to a challenge.
“When Ludwick Marishane started working on DryBath, the big problem I was dealing with was a solution to global hygiene where in some countries families were forking out a fortune on bottled water just to bath. So for me it was about developing a winning formula. I said to myself, I can build a hygiene company and create a new category on the retail shelf.”
Throughout the quest for the solution, and it’s been well documented, it was the joy of the challenge that kept him going. It’s a useful piece of advice for people who encounter adversity on the path to success: focus on the positive of why you are doing something in the first place and don’t lose sight of the big goal.
TIME Magazine named Ludwick Marishane as one of the ‘Top 30 Under 30 People That Are Changing the World’ in 2013.
He holds a Bachelor of Business Science, majoring in Finance & Accounting from the University of Cape Town.
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In this engaging 5 minute TED-style talk, Ludwick Marishane recounts how growing up in Motetema, on the Limpopo–Mpumalanga border, shaped his perspective on inconsistent access to water and electricity. At age seventeen, while sunbathing with friends, a joking question about inventing something that would eliminate the need to bathe sparked an idea that would change the course of his life. Curious, he researched global hygiene statistics and discovered that 2.5 billion people lack proper access to water and sanitation, including millions across Africa. He explains the severity of related diseases such as trachoma, a preventable eye infection that causes eight million cases of permanent blindness each year. For Ludwick, this shifted the idea from personal convenience to a genuine attempt to address a global need.
With limited resources, no laptop, and only a basic Nokia 6234 phone, he conducted research using pay-per-hour internet café access and high school level science. He developed a formula, drafted a business plan, and eventually wrote his own patent on the phone—becoming South Africa’s youngest patent holder. The result was DryBath, a first-of-its-kind bath-substituting lotion that cleans the skin without using water.
He shares insights from bringing the product to market, including the need for single-use sachet packaging to match buying habits in low income communities. Priced at five rand per sachet, DryBath provides one bath substitute and addresses both convenience and life-saving hygiene needs. He notes that even affluent consumers see value in the product’s convenience and that widespread use could save significant water and time, especially for rural children who spend hours each day collecting water.
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