Welcome to Broadway Stages’ Spotlight, where we feature local shops, restaurants, organizations, individuals, and venues. In celebration of Black History Month, we are shining the spotlight on the achievements of Black Americans who have paved the way and continue to blaze a trail forward. Today, we feature prominent inventor and entrepreneur Jessica O. Matthews.

Jessica O. Matthews has been described as part Bill Gates, part Bill Nye and part Beyoncé.  But make no mistake, Matthews is an original and successful in her own right! Fortune magazine has named Matthews one of its “10 Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs.” The Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations named her “Scientist of the Year.” And she was recently appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Energy to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Electricity Advisory Committee. A dual citizen of Nigeria and the U.S., Matthews has a degree in Psychology and Economics from Harvard University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She is listed on over 10 patents and patents pending. Among her many achievements, today we shine the spotlight on Matthews’ efforts to bring light to children worldwide. 

As juniors at Harvard in 2008, Matthews and classmate Julia Silverman invented a soccer ball to be used as a portable power generator. Playing with the soccer ball, called Soccket, for 30 minutes will power a small attachable LED light for three hours. In May 2011, the pair founded the award-winning New York-based company Uncharted Power to develop Soccket, with Matthews at the helm as CEO. The company also makes a jump rope called Pulse, that generates three hours of power for an LED through 15 minutes of jumping rope. Based on a belief that reliable access to sustainable infrastructue is a humanright, the mission at Uncharted Power is to raise the standard of living for everyone. By March 2017, half a million Socckets and Pulses had been used in developing regions, primarily in Africa and Latin America. With the light produced by these inventions, young people are able to study late into the evenings.

Since its founding, Uncharted Power has evolved into a software-as-a-service (SAAS) sustainable infrastructure company. They are working to create solutions to improve the efficiency and accessibility of energy, water, air, transit, and connectivity infrastructure. “When I think about how the smartphone has democratized the way we live our lives, it’s hard not to be incredibly excited about the future,” said Matthews, “because the platform we’re developing has the power to change and sustain the environment we live in.”

You can follow the extraordinary work being done at Uncharted Power on Instagram and Twitter. If you are interested in joining the team at Uncharted, you can email community@uncharted.city to learn more.

In 2016, Matthews created the Harlem Tech Fund (HTF), a non-profit that aims to support 100 new startups and offer technology training to 10,000 Harlem residents over the next two to five years. She is driven by a desire to inspire “a billion people to see the role that they can play in making the better world that they want.”

Matthews work has expanded to include global infrastructure projects. As a dual citizen of the U.S. and Nigeria, she says, “I knew firsthand that when it came to access power, we’re spending more per kilowatt hour (in Nigeria) than what people are spending in the United States.” To this end, she co-founded and is the executive director of KDDC, a company that is developing a hydropower dam project in Nigeria. The 30-megawatt dam is among the first hydroelectric dam projects privatized in Nigeria.

Not even the sky is the limit for this dynamic young entrepreneur. Be sure to follow her on Instagram and Twitter to see what she does next. All we can say is wow, congratulations and thank you Ms. Matthews!  Your entrepreneurial spirit is making amazing changes that bring sustainable value and euqity to people around the world.