Ludwick Marishane
Ludwick Marishane is an international, award-winning business scientist and speaker. He is the MD of an innovative product-development & commercialisation company best known for their DryBath® product which he invented at the age 17. Through this he became South Africa’s youngest patent-filer.
In 2011, he was rated as the best student entrepreneur in the world, and that same year, Google named him as one of the 12 brightest young minds in the world.
He holds a Bachelor of Business Science, majoring in Finance & Accounting, from the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
In December 2013, TIME Magazine named him as “one of the 30 people, under 30, who are changing the world”. He was of only 2 Africans on the list.
Forbes Africa named him as one of the Top 30 under 30 Young African Entrepreneurs in 2013 & 2015. And in 2015 he was chosen as one of South Africa’s 21 ICONS for the curation’s youth-focused 3rd edition.
He was the only African (and youngest) to address the 1500-person industry-audience at the 2015 Accenture Innovation Conference (on the topic of Reverse Innovation), and has done corporate & academic talks for, among others, GIBS, UCT-GSB, Standard Bank, Absa, Discovery, Momentum, VWSA, Accenture, Sanlam, Primedia, Nandos and the Consumer Goods Forum Summit
He speaks with an engagingly relaxed, humorous tone, but is very frank with regards to speaking practically in a matter-of-fact way on his topics.
Ludwick speaks as a thought leader in applying the principles of scientific experimentation (ie. The disciplined trial & error approach to problem-solving) in order to leverage the potential impact of socio-economic, process, and product innovations in a manner that is mindful of the human element required for successful implementation. A broad definition of his topics would be: Technology-based Innovation and Commercialization, Youth Development and Enablement, Mindfulness as a tool for helping people understand and pursue their role in the workplace and community.
These topics are quite dense if one is to deliver any practical tools to the audience, but Ludwick delivers the content through the use of engaging stories that the audience can remember for weeks afterwards. He speaks with an relaxed humorous tone, while being frank about the realities of practically implementing the tools of his topics. He is analytical during client briefings, to ensure his engagement solves/discusses a real business problem for the client. This has to be done in as honest a way as possible, allowing the audience to trust and experiment with the tools discussed.
In 2011, he was rated the top student in the Global Student Entrepreneurs Awards).
In 2013, Frost & Sullivan awarded him, alongside Archbishop Desmond Tutu, with the Growth Innovation & Leadership Africa Award (GIL 2013). His company was also selected as the Overall Winner at the Inaugural Western Cape Premier’s Entrepreneurship Recognition Awards (2013).
After graduating from UCT, Ludwick has dedicated himself to running his business, and to working with the Technology Innovation Agency in order to promote technology/innovation entrepreneurship, especially among young people.