Few would dispute soccer’s status as the world’s most popular sport. Fewer still would dispute the goodwill that guides New York-based Uncharted Play, which has set out to develop “fun products and services that address real-world problems.”
Its flagship product is sOccket, a soccer ball for the developing world that takes the generated kinetic energy — the energy the ball creates when it is in motion — and stores it in a battery. Uncharted Play says that a single electric light, plugged into the built-in socket (hence the ball’s name), can be powered for up to three hours after only 15 to 30 minutes of playtime. Considering that a regulation soccer game takes 90 minutes, that’s quite a bit of electricity to have at the ready.
The inventors, Jessica Matthews and Julia Silverman, Uncharted Play’s chief executive officer and chief social officer, respectively, met in a Harvard engineering class, where they started sOccket as a class project. (Both are 23 years old, and both have been accepted into Harvard Business School, which they plan to attend next fall.) Deciding to transform sOccket from a class project into something more substantial was a relatively recent development.
“The turning point was the beginning of 2011,” Silverman said. “We sort of came to the conclusion that we really had to commit all the way, or make our peace and say we’ve done what we can do. Jessica and I said this idea is too good to let go, so we both committed to it full-time; we quit our day jobs and put all of our savings into it. We’re literally totally invested.”
She explained that the company has a four-part bottom line. “One part of it is profit, but then we go beyond that — these are all equally important to us — and second is social impact: How much of that are we creating? Third is ecological impact: What kind of impact are we having on the environment? The fourth is within our company: We want people to be excited to be working here, and we want everybody to be [creatively] thinking. That’s what the product is about, and that’s what we hope our broader company is about," Silverman said.
“We’re weird in that we want competitors. We want more people in this realm,” said Matthews. “And maybe this is selfish, but I would really prefer a better world as we get older. A happier, more innovative and creative social enterprise kind of world.”
For those of us lucky enough to have been born in a developed country, having enough electricity to power a small reading light may not seem like much, but for children in the developing world, it opens up a galaxy of opportunities that otherwise might not have existed.
“The physical ball is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Silverman. “We have a program of social learning educational curricula that can help kids take away as much as possible from the ball — not just how you use the ball, but why you use the ball. Teaching about energy, of course, but also innovation and empowerment. A lot of schools and educational systems around the world really advocate rote memorization and rote learning, and creative thinking isn’t rewarded in any way. My hope is that kids take away a sense of the power of creativity, and are able to change their communities in imaginative ways.”
The ball, which launches this month — an ongoing auction lets people in the developed world buy one ball and give many in turn — is the latest in a long line of different revisions. One of the early balls was so heavy that Matthews nicknamed it the Medicine Ball. Earlier prototypes had a number of glitches. They’d puncture easily, or deflate after a short period of use. Children also frequently misplaced the pin used to inflate the ball, so if it ever started to deflate, the children would be out of luck, and out of electricity.
The new ball won’t deflate nearly as easily, is water-resistant, and is made of 95 percent recycled material. And despite the gadgetry stuffed inside, it’s only about six ounces heavier than a regulation-sized ball.
“The reason we use soccer is because it’s fun, it’s everywhere, it’s universal,” said Silverman.
“We not only built [the ball] to inspire other people, but it kind of inspired each of us individually, especially me,” said Matthews. “It opened my eyes to what it means to do social enterprise, and what it means to do good. It really matured my thought process in terms of what I wanted to do with my life, and how I viewed my places in this world. I’m not as afraid of growing up anymore, because at least I’m doing something meaningful.”
Matthews added: “We’re playing to this idea of building out a company in a way so that we can bring in a COO or a president … to help us with the day-to-day, but we still want to be pretty involved, until we feel it’s been taken to a place where it exists on its own and is bigger than us.”
Its flagship product is sOccket, a soccer ball for the developing world that takes the generated kinetic energy — the energy the ball creates when it is in motion — and stores it in a battery. Uncharted Play says that a single electric light, plugged into the built-in socket (hence the ball’s name), can be powered for up to three hours after only 15 to 30 minutes of playtime. Considering that a regulation soccer game takes 90 minutes, that’s quite a bit of electricity to have at the ready.
The inventors, Jessica Matthews and Julia Silverman, Uncharted Play’s chief executive officer and chief social officer, respectively, met in a Harvard engineering class, where they started sOccket as a class project. (Both are 23 years old, and both have been accepted into Harvard Business School, which they plan to attend next fall.) Deciding to transform sOccket from a class project into something more substantial was a relatively recent development.
“The turning point was the beginning of 2011,” Silverman said. “We sort of came to the conclusion that we really had to commit all the way, or make our peace and say we’ve done what we can do. Jessica and I said this idea is too good to let go, so we both committed to it full-time; we quit our day jobs and put all of our savings into it. We’re literally totally invested.”
She explained that the company has a four-part bottom line. “One part of it is profit, but then we go beyond that — these are all equally important to us — and second is social impact: How much of that are we creating? Third is ecological impact: What kind of impact are we having on the environment? The fourth is within our company: We want people to be excited to be working here, and we want everybody to be [creatively] thinking. That’s what the product is about, and that’s what we hope our broader company is about," Silverman said.
“We’re weird in that we want competitors. We want more people in this realm,” said Matthews. “And maybe this is selfish, but I would really prefer a better world as we get older. A happier, more innovative and creative social enterprise kind of world.”
For those of us lucky enough to have been born in a developed country, having enough electricity to power a small reading light may not seem like much, but for children in the developing world, it opens up a galaxy of opportunities that otherwise might not have existed.
“The physical ball is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Silverman. “We have a program of social learning educational curricula that can help kids take away as much as possible from the ball — not just how you use the ball, but why you use the ball. Teaching about energy, of course, but also innovation and empowerment. A lot of schools and educational systems around the world really advocate rote memorization and rote learning, and creative thinking isn’t rewarded in any way. My hope is that kids take away a sense of the power of creativity, and are able to change their communities in imaginative ways.”
The ball, which launches this month — an ongoing auction lets people in the developed world buy one ball and give many in turn — is the latest in a long line of different revisions. One of the early balls was so heavy that Matthews nicknamed it the Medicine Ball. Earlier prototypes had a number of glitches. They’d puncture easily, or deflate after a short period of use. Children also frequently misplaced the pin used to inflate the ball, so if it ever started to deflate, the children would be out of luck, and out of electricity.
The new ball won’t deflate nearly as easily, is water-resistant, and is made of 95 percent recycled material. And despite the gadgetry stuffed inside, it’s only about six ounces heavier than a regulation-sized ball.
“The reason we use soccer is because it’s fun, it’s everywhere, it’s universal,” said Silverman.
“We not only built [the ball] to inspire other people, but it kind of inspired each of us individually, especially me,” said Matthews. “It opened my eyes to what it means to do social enterprise, and what it means to do good. It really matured my thought process in terms of what I wanted to do with my life, and how I viewed my places in this world. I’m not as afraid of growing up anymore, because at least I’m doing something meaningful.”
Matthews added: “We’re playing to this idea of building out a company in a way so that we can bring in a COO or a president … to help us with the day-to-day, but we still want to be pretty involved, until we feel it’s been taken to a place where it exists on its own and is bigger than us.”
