children to put away a soccer ball and stop playing. Now, thanks to an
innovation by Jessica Mathews Company , Uncharted Play, those same
parents might be encouraging some extra playtime. Uncharted Play has
created the SOCCKET, the power-generating soccer ball that literally
turns play into energy.
Jessica, a dual citizen of Nigeria and the United States, first came
up with the idea for the company when visiting Nigeria for a family
wedding. When the power went out during the party, her relatives
switched on the noisy, noxious diesel generators that have become a way
of life for nearly 60 million Nigerians. As we all know by now, only 25
percent of Nigerians have access to regular electricity, and the nation
averages 32 eight-hour power outages per month.
This inspired the Harvard graduate to innovate on possible off-grid
power solutions. Alongside the SOCCKET ball invention, Uncharted Play is
also credited with other innovations such as PULSE, an emergency
battery charging jump rope. Both products use Uncharted Play’s
proprietary M.O.R.E. (Motion-based, Off-Grid, Renewable Energy)
technology to harness power generated by minutes of play to create hours
of electricity.
She believes that people should not have to be restricted to being
connected to walls to have access to power and has been making great
strides in converting kinetic energy to usable electricity.
Though her company is based in New york, she has revealed plans to
spread her power solutions to other parts of the world including Africa,
and with the recent 7 million dollar funding she has just received, She
just might get her wish.
The $7 million investment in Uncharted Play makes Matthews the 13th
black female founder who has raised more than $1 million in outside
investment.
In the tech ecosystem, black female founders receive basically zero
venture capital. Of the several thousand venture deals that went down
from 2012 to 2014, less than 1 percent of them went to black women. This
goes to highlight just how much of landmark this is for Jessica
Matthews and all African American women in the renewable energy sphere.
Some might argue that Mathews is yet to truly create a lasting
solution to most of the world’s power struggles but at 28 years old one
would be foolish to bet against her achieving that in the nearest
future.
In an interview when she was questioned about comparisons with her schoolmate – a certain Mark Zuckerburg, she emoted, saying
“I said to them, ‘I just have to come clean; I don’t know if I can do
this. Zuckerberg and I went to the same school, but we grew up in a
totally different experiences, He is much more like them (silicon valley
type). They won’t understand me. They won’t understand the experience.”
She further explained that personal experiences and struggles give
birth to solutions. Zuckerberg could not have invented SOCCKET,
because his struggle was he could not get a date while at Harvard.
Meanwhile, Matthews’ solution is based her own family’s struggle with
energy issues in Nigeria.
Source: Women Of Rubies