SP le Roux (Photography: Julian Goldswain)

It’s an odd quirk of fate that the loss of 250 sheep in a single night was the catalyst for an invention that may be saving the lives of hundreds of rhino.

The stock theft proved a pivotal moment in the life of young SP le Roux, a farm boy from Standerton who was studying electronic engineering at Stellenbosch University. Le Roux was about to be assigned a six-month project to put his knowledge into practice when he heard about the theft from his uncle’s farm. This was one of South Africa’s peculiar problems in dire need of a local solution. “I went to my professor and asked if it was okay if I proposed my own project rather than just having one handed to me at random,” he remembers.