Jessica O. Matthews is a Nigerian-American inventor and entrepreneur. She was born to Nigerian immigrant parents and raised in Poughkeepsie, New York. Her story however did not begin in America.
It started with a wedding in Nigeria. A teenage Jessica watched as diesel generators roared to life, filling the air with toxic fumes just to keep the lights on. When she complained to her cousins, they told her she would get used to it. She never did and the world is better for it.
That moment stayed with her. In 2008, as a college student at Harvard, Jessica and her classmate Julia Silverman invented the Soccket as part of an engineering class assignment. The Soccket was a soccer ball designed to store kinetic energy during play. A half hour of kicking the ball around was enough to power a small LED light for three hours. Children in off-grid communities could study after dark. Their classmates saw a clever project. Jessica saw a starting point.
In 2011, at just 22 years old, Jessica founded Uncharted Power on the conviction that reliable access to energy is a human right. What began as an energy-generating toy grew into a full-scale infrastructure technology company. She knew the soccer ball was not the real invention. The technology inside it was.
She developed and trademarked MORE. It stands for Motion-based Off-Grid Renewable Energy. The system harvests kinetic energy and can be integrated into floor panels, streets, speed bumps, sidewalks and subway turnstiles. Everyday movement becomes usable electricity. The Pulse came next. It is a jump rope built on the same technology as the Soccket. Fifteen minutes of jumping generates three hours of power for an LED light.
Building a company is one thing. Funding it as a Black woman in the technology space is a different challenge entirely. In 2016, she raised $7 million in Series A funding. Uncharted Power was valued at $57 million. It was the largest Series A round ever raised by a Black female founder at that time. That same year, the company had been profitable for three consecutive years. The gross profit margins doubled year on year.
She never forgot the communities that inspired her. By 2017, over 500,000 Socckets and Pulses had reached developing regions across Africa and Latin America. She also co-founded a hydropower dam project in Nigeria. It was a 30-megawatt development among the first hydroelectric projects to be privatised in the country.
The recognition came steadily. In 2012, President Barack Obama invited her to the White House for the signing of the America Invents Act. She represented small companies across the country. In 2014, she appeared on the cover of the Forbes 30 Under 30 issue. In 2016, she rang the NASDAQ opening bell representing all Forbes 30 Under 30 alumni.
For a young Nigerian-American woman from Poughkeepsie, that was no small thing.
Leave with this
Jessica O. Matthews did not wait for someone to solve the problem she saw at seventeen. She carried it with her through college. She built a company around it. That is the part of her story that deserves the most attention.
Most people see problems every day and move on. They tell themselves the problem is too big. They assume someone else will handle it. Jessica made a different choice. She decided that what she saw was not a distraction. It was a direction.
Consider the problem you keep walking past. The gap you notice but leave for someone else. The idea you have put aside because the timing never feels right. If not you, then who? If not now, then when?
The world does not need perfect conditions to change. It needs people who are willing to start.
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