Making Capetonians proud: Cape Town-based businessman and media personality, Richard Hardiman, has made it into the global final of Entrepreneur X Factor 2013! Hardiman has had his entrepreneurial fingers in a number of successful pies like digital, online radio (right here at 2oceansvibe nogals) as well as manufacturing. But it’s his latest venture that pits him against 20 businessmen from 15 countries.

Hardiman has come up with an automated way to clean the surface waters in ports, harbours and marinas. His pitch won the Cape Town leg of the competition and now he faces competition from France, Australia, Singapore, and Hong Kong for the title of Global Entrepreneur.

Hardiman’s “HarborWell” idea was born some 5 years ago at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town. While watching a standard clean-up of surface debris, it came to him that there had to be an easier, more effective way to clean our harbours. Hardiman spoke to 567 Cape Talk about his project:

“There’s more technology involved where we would have large drones that would literally zip up and down collecting trash, all solar powered, and then they would return to what we call a drone port at the end of the night. We want to patent the project and so I can’t talk much about what we are doing or show people pretty pictures. But it’s rather exciting.”

The idea is currently in its R&D stages and it will reportedly alleviate a lot of the surface waste that can be found floating in man-made ports and harbours.

The final of the event will take place on 15 December.  Vote for him here: EntrepreneurXFactor

[Source : EWN, EntrepreneurXFactor]