Page 52 - IDC

6 CITY PRESS, 1 OCTOBER, 2017
business
aseka Lesolang, an entrepreneur based in
Gauteng, stumbled upon his business
idea while lazing around at his granny’s
house in Ga-Rankuwa, northern Pretoria,
10 years ago. He was 19.
P He became annoyed by the
constant hissing sound the toilet was making,
and went to close the tap that supplies water In
to the cistern – and that got him wondering partnership
what could be done to fix the problem for
good without employing the expensive with the
services of a plumber.
Like many township residents, Lesolang’s
indigent grandmother couldn’t afford to fix her IDC
leaking toilet as she spent her state pension
grant on basic necessities. But this also meant
that her municipal utility bill was higher than it
needed to be because the leak would waste up to 200
litres of water a day – the equivalent of flushing the
toilet 50 times.
“I started noticing that this was a big problem. People
were used to the hissing sound, and I thought to
myself: ‘What about the community, the city and the
province?’ I thought that, instead of complaining about
it, I had to find a solution,” Lesolang says.
After a lot of research, which showed that leaks from
a single cistern could translate into the equivalent of
2 400 baths full of water a year, Lesolang came up with
the idea of the Leak-Less Valve. The valve, which he has
refined over the years, is a mechanism that controls
water flow into the cistern, and monitors and detects
leaks.
Although his formal post-school training was in
commerce and he hadn’t done a technical subject since
high school, he wasn’t deterred and he drew up a
rough sketch of how his gizmo would work.
“The toilet manufacturers were not even considering
my solution. They said toilets were just like cars – they
depreciate and inevitably leak. It’s not a matter of if the
toilet leaks, but when it will leak. They said that,
considering my commerce background, they did not think
I’d give them anything of engineering value,” he says.
With funding from the Industrial Development
Corporation (IDC) and support from a listed company,
Lesolang’s company Water Hygiene Convenience (WHC)
is now manufacturing the valves in Johannesburg,
Tshwane and Sasolburg.
The WHC Leak-Less Valve saves 70% of the water that STEMMING
would otherwise have been wasted, thereby saving users
money. In this water-scarce country, preventing clean
water from literally going down the toilet is invaluable.
Despite such a useful innovation in a country that THE FLOW
The valves were first piloted with 865 units in
Tshwane in 2015 and have been rolled out in
Johannesburg, and 100 000 units are due to be rolled
out in Nkangala in Mpumalanga. A major international
retailer is in the process of rolling out the supply of the
valves at all its stores nationally, where consumers will
be able to buy them.
loses R7.2 billion in water leaks that remain unfixed,
getting the business off the ground has been anything Award-winning entrepreneur Paseka Lesolang
but plain sailing for Lesolang. He’s had to jump through
a lot of hoops over the past few years to get to where
he is today. made the prototype of his water-saving invention
He initially approached government institutions as his
solution was meant to save the state money, but he says
he was sent from pillar to post. His initial breakthrough
came when Motsweding FM interviewed him about the
product in 2007, and he was inundated with calls and
text messages from people who wanted to buy the
gadget – even though it had not yet been manufactured
or patented.
One of the people who heard the interview linked
Lesolang up with patent specialists who agreed to help
register his initial patent for free. But the snag was that
he needed to develop the product before he could get
intellectual property rights to it, and he didn’t have the
R500 000 required to do this.
“Every time I went to investors, they said: ‘Develop a
product before we can invest in you.’ However, I
needed their money to develop the product. So I had
this catch-22 situation, and it made my journey much
longer. I had to use composite materials and waste that
I found at my grandmother’s house to create a
prototype of how the device works,” he says.
The award-winning inventor eventually approached
the SA Bureau of Standards with the prototype and it
referred him to the Innovation Hub, which referred him
to FabLab in Pretoria. The lab provides innovators with
materials, computer-aided design and a laser cutter to
develop their innovations.
“At FabLab, they don’t give you a fish – they teach
you how to fish. I spent three months there and found
out that there was a FabLab in Soshanguve, which is
closer to Ga-Rankuwa, so I started using that one.
New-generation slurry pump cleans up after mining
SABELO NDLANGISA DISRUPTIVE
business@citypress.co.za A slurry
pump
n a world where water is a scarce commodity, invented by
innovations that help companies use less of the
Iresource are economic game-changers. Wood saves
This is what engineer and inventor Richard Wood set water and
out to do with a nonabrasive slurry pump that saves power
both water and energy. He has been developing this at mines
product, which is already being used in the mining
industry, for the past nine years.
Alastair Moffat, the nonexecutive chair of the Delta
Zero Corporation, which is rolling out the pump, says
slurry pumps currently used in the mining industry are
40% to 50% efficient and tend to wear out quickly.
In contrast, the Delta Zero slurry pump system is
80% efficient and saves about 30% of the electricity
used to pump slurry. The Industrial Development
Corporation (IDC) has entered into an agreement with
the company to fund the further development of the
product.
Moffat, an engineer, explains why slurry pumps are
an essential part of industries such as mining: “When
they bring rock out of the ground, it might have 5g of
gold per ton of rock. So, to get the gold out of the rock,
workers take the rock and crush it into smaller
particles. They then put those smaller pieces into a
thing called a mill, where they crush it even further.
“The way gold is extracted is that each particle has to
be small enough so that, if there is gold in that particle,
some of the gold will be exposed on the outside of that
HE’S NO DRIP Paseka Lesolang’s invention has helped to create jobs and save water – two things
South Africa desperately needs – and it all started with his grandmother’s leaking toilet
LIZEKA MATSHEKGA
from waste found around his grandmother’s
house, writes Sabelo Ndlangisa
“I completed my demonstration unit there. They even inspiring youngsters in South Africa.
allowed me to sleep in the factory and open for them Lesolang encountered IDC’s venture capital investor
the next day.” Irfaan Khota at one of these awards ceremonies in Cape
That’s when Lesolang started entering competitions Town in 2014, and the IDC bought a stake in his
with his invention and began to secure funds to start company after a due diligence process in 2015.
developing his product further. The first big award “This year, the IDC completed another due diligence
came from the Maker Faire Africa in Kenya, where he process at my company and it gave me 10 times more
won the award for the most innovative project for the money than it initially did in 2015. I’d like to believe I
environment in 2010. did a good job between now and then,” he says.
That’s also where then CEO of the Unreasonable “My relationship with the IDC has been growing. The
Institute, Teju Ravilochan, first noticed Lesolang’s work. job creation aspects are also improving through its
The University of Colorado-based institute, which assistance.”
supports start-ups that have the potential to benefit To date, WHC has created 26 jobs. The next project
more than 1 million people after a stringent selection in the next three months is expected to create 70 jobs,
process, eventually selected him in 2012 as one of the followed by 150 more thereafter for the Nkangala
25 global innovators it would groom and train that year. project. The project will help give employment to
This was followed by a number of awards, including youngsters, women and disabled people in the
the SAB Foundation Social Innovation Award and the assembling and installation side of the business.
Junior Chamber International Creative Young The course also teaches young people basic plumbing
Entrepreneur Award in Taiwan the same year. and entrepreneurial skills.
As if his awards cupboard isn’t already groaning, On a personal note, Lesolang’s grandmother is now
Lesolang last month won the Innovator of the Year saving 200 litres of water a day, thanks to her
Award for being one of the top 100 most promising and grandson’s innovation.
Alastair environment. The energy of the falling water is used to
Moffat of pump dirty water out and keep the mine dry. That
Delta Zero
says the
Richard pumps
are more
efficient, sourced from South African suppliers.
use less
water and
have a
longer
lifespan
PHOTO:
EUGENE
GODDARD
particle. Then workers dissolve the gold using cyanide, The Delta Zero system, on the other hand, transfers
and the gold gets taken away. If you’ve taken only 5g energy from clean water to slurry without the clean
out of a ton, you are left with a lot of tailings – rock water coming into contact with the slurry. The lack of
residue – to get rid of,” Moffat says. wear means there is more efficiency and water is saved.
“These dams that you see around gold mines are A study conducted at one of Delta’s clients in the
tailings from the extraction process that have to be Free State found it could save the company about
dumped somewhere. The way they put that into those R30 million in energy and water costs a year over a
dams is that those small particles of solids are carried decade.
in water. So, the slurry is a stream of water with Wood already has several inventions under his belt.
particles suspended in it.” The inspiration for the pump came to him when he was
Moffat likens slurry to liquid sandpaper and says it working on an underground cooling system for a
quickly wears out steel pipes in conventional pumps mining company.
because of the way they are designed. That’s why slurry Using the force of gravity, the system sends cold
pumps are known as “self-destructive machines”. water underground to cool down the mine workers’
OPINION
Water is an
economic
opportunity
LIZEKA MATSHEKGA
ater keeps economies across the globe
flowing, and South Africa is no exception.
WEvery major sector of our economy is
dependent on the consistent supply of this increasingly
scarce resource.
As new businesses and the growing residential
infrastructure across the country increase demand,
it will become progressively difficult for South Africa
to sustain this growth without investing in water
security.
The bulk of fresh water used in most manufacturing
industries spread across Gauteng is drawn from
Lesotho’s Maluti Mountains, leaving us with little
option but to invest extensively in new bulk water
infrastructure, and in technology that will contribute to
unlocking capacity and preserving this resource.
Mining and agriculture are considered key growth
sectors of the economy without which it will be almost
impossible to achieve growth, as well as address South
Africa’s unemployment and transformation imperatives.
Against this backdrop and competing interests, it is
essential for entrepreneurs looking for IDC support,
especially in mining and agricultural sectors, to obtain
relevant approvals including a water permit.
At the same time, the corporation recognises that
finding innovative solutions to preserve
water and enabling consistent supply
presents immense opportunities to
create new black industrialists.
The potential for growth of the
mining sector is massive, yet
onerous requirements for start-
ups, including water permits, are
emerging entrepreneurs to break
justifiably making it difficult for
into this industry. Similar
challenges face those who want
to break into the agricultural
sector.
Of our available fresh water in
agricultural purposes, which
South Africa, 60% is currently used for
largely justifies the department of
water’s obduracy in approving
new water licences to aspiring
entrepreneurs.
We have to delicately balance the competing demand
for water against the availability of the resource for all
of us, which is why it is commendable that companies
such as Delta Zero Corporation have developed
innovative solutions to help preserve water. The
company’s patented technology is locally produced,
and 80% of the components supporting it are locally
produced with the potential for export.
The technology supports the mining value chain by
reducing the cost of production through lower water
and energy consumption, of which slurry pumping is a
huge component.
Gauteng-based entrepreneur Paseka Lesolang has
developed a unique patented product, the WHC Leak-
Less Valve, which is a water-control mechanism that is
placed in toilet cisterns to stop the influx of water at a
predetermined level. This ensures the reduction of
water loss due to unnecessary outlet valve leaks.
These inventions are just two examples of the
interventions that entrepreneurs have created to help
us manage the water challenges we face and the effect
such challenges have on the economy.
These very different products illustrate the
possibilities that are out there that could grow and
develop our economy. Entrepreneurs and potential
black industrialists can tap into opportunities like these
in the bulk water infrastructure space – for the good of
our economy, but also for the wellbeing of all South
Africans.
Matshekga is the divisional executive of agro,
infrastructure and new industries at the IDC
method inspired Wood’s slurry pump.
Moffat says the reason the IDC was keen to fund the
project is because it is environmentally friendly and
because the components used to assemble it are
It has huge export potential, especially to other
African countries, where mining operations still use
diesel generators to produce electricity.
“We visited mines in Mali, Ghana and Tanzania. They
don’t have an electricity grid like we’ve got here – they
generate their own electricity and it’s very expensive,”
Moffat says.
“In terms of the value propositions for mines in
Africa, it’s huge. We are also looking at mines in
Canada and in South America. So it’s got huge earnings
potential for the country.”
The business model is not based on selling the
pumps to clients, but rather operating them on behalf
of the users, who are then charged a fee for pumping
the slurry. The pumps have a lifespan of 20 years.
So far, the project has cost about R60 million and the
IDC has funded between 15% and 20% of that, Moffat
says. The project will need more money as it is further
introduced. The company plans to raise asset-based
funding from financial institutions.
“The term ‘disruptive technology’ has been applied to
us here. There are applications for at least 2 000 of our
pumps in South Africa alone. It will be a very
disruptive technology in the industry,” says Moffat.