What my grandfather’s cup of water taught me about innovation in Africa

I grew up in Dutyini, rural Eastern Cape, under the vigilant supervision of my grandparents, where water did not come from a tap but from a river, carried in buckets on women’s heads with the precision of a surgeon, careful not to spill a drop of this precious commodity.

The morning air in Dutyini was often crisp, but my grandfather’s voice could cut through it with a warmth that demanded immediate attention.“Khayalethu!” Alfred Kaiser Boyce would bellow. And from wherever I was, I would shout back, “Tatomkhulu!” and run towards him, because I already knew where he was, near the sheep kraal, and what he expected.

To an outsider, what happened next might have looked like a struggle against poverty, but to me, under his strict and watchful eye, it was a masterclass in precision engineering.He would have already scooped a cup of water from a bucket using a powdery blue enamel cup. He would hand me the cup and the daily morning ritual would begin.He would cup his hands, creating a seal so tight that not a single drop could escape. I would pour and he would wash his hands, then rinse them. Then the face would receive the same treatment. Finally, he would brush his teeth, all using that single cup of water.

By the time he was finished, satisfied that every inch of his hands, face and teeth had received its share, we had used about half the water. Then it was my turn.My grandfather was not thinking about a lack of water. He was practising supreme optimisation. He understood intuitively that when a resource is constrained, the user interface must change. You do not stop washing, you simply change how you pour.

That instinct, learned early and practised daily, stayed with me. Years later, working on brands across the continent, I began to recognise it everywhere.It is this exact instinct - what I think of as "Alfred Kaiser Boyce logic" - that defines the most successful businesses on the continent. We call it Can-If thinking: the belief that constraints can become opportunities for innovation.

African businesses that succeed do not attempt to import Western abundance into an African context. They design for the half cup. They accept what will not change and focus their energy on what can. Infrastructure, for example, remains a significant challenge in many parts of Africa. But the resourceful spirit required to work in these markets makes you look at a problem differently: it is not going to change, so how do we transform it into an opportunity? As brand expert Thebe Ikalafeng once observed, “Coca-Cola is so successful in Africa because they are local, wherever they are.”

When The Coca-Cola Company wanted to reach consumers in regions with difficult terrain, it did not wait for roads to be built. It adapted distribution to reality, using camels, bicycles, boats, and deeply local human networks. The insight was simple: how do people already move things here?Poor infrastructure was the constraint. Western logistics were not the answer. The solution lay in understanding how people already move.

You cannot bulldoze your way out of a significant constraint. You have to design your way around it - not by being different for novelty’s sake, but by being precise, practical, and deeply contextual. That is how a constraint stops being a ceiling and becomes a source of abundance. Africa does not reward denial. It rewards those willing to meet reality exactly where it stands.

The problems here do not bend to force, but they respond to respect. Learn to love the problem, to sit with it long enough to understand it, and it will offer solutions as beautiful as they are effective.

Can-If thinking in practice

Can-If thinking starts with a propelling question, one that combines bold ambition with a significant constraint and refuses the defeatist reflex of “We can’t because…”. Imagine, for example, a pharmaceutical company with the ambition of distributing quality medicine widely across Africa. It immediately faces the reality of poor transport networks and limited healthcare infrastructure.

A propelling question for such a business might be: “How can we ensure everyone in Africa has access to quality medicine, when distribution is hampered by poor infrastructure?” The response: We can if we combine existing infrastructure with pop up clinics, using shops, post offices, and bank branches as medicine collection points. If we treat this as a community empowerment opportunity, equipping local people with basic healthcare knowledge, starter kits of essential medication, and access to mobile diagnostic tools with automated escalation to a pool of qualified virtual doctors. We can if we remove the traditional reliance on roads, using drones, boats, motorcycles, and other non-traditional transport for emergency delivery of medicine, vaccines, and test kits.

LifeBank is a real-world example. This health logistics company delivers essential medical supplies to hospitals across Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Kenya using digital platforms, real-time tracking, and delivery networks including drones and boats. Products reach remote areas quickly and safely. Stockouts are reduced. Essential medicines reach the people who need them. None of this required waiting for perfect infrastructure. It required designing for reality.

My grandfather never framed water scarcity as a problem to be solved. He treated it as acondition of life that demanded discipline, respect, and intelligence. That same mindset, applied at scale, is what allows organisations to succeed in complex African markets. The principle extends to finance, education, retail, energy - every sector seeking to serve African markets. The question is not whether constraints exist, but whether we have the imagination to see the opportunities within them.

Khaya Dlanga as Managing Partner at Delta Victor Bravo (partners to eatbigfish in Africa).

*** The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Independent Media or IOL.

BUSINESS REPORT