Jessica Matthews

Overview

Jessica O. Matthews (born 13 February 1988) is a Nigerian‑American inventor, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist best known for co‑inventing the SOCCKET, an energy‑generating soccer ball, and for founding Uncharted Play (later Uncharted Power), a sustainable‑infrastructure company that develops technology for distributed power and smart cities.^[1][5] Her work sits at the intersection of human‑centered design, clean energy, and infrastructure, and she has been listed on more than a dozen patents related to energy and communications technologies.^[1][5] Matthews has been recognized with honors including Forbes “30 Under 30,” Black Enterprise’s Innovator of the Year, and the Harvard Foundation’s Scientist of the Year award.^[5][8][12]

Early Life and Background

Jessica Omatola Matthews was born in New York City to Nigerian parents and grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York.^[1][5] She holds dual citizenship in the United States and Nigeria, a bi‑national identity that would later shape both the problems she chose to work on and the communities she prioritized in her business strategies.^[1][5] Her extended family remained in Nigeria, and Matthews spent time there as a child and teenager. During these visits she experienced frequent power outages and observed how households and small businesses relied on diesel generators to cope with chronic grid instability.^[1][5]

These early encounters with unreliable power access left a lasting impression. They exposed her to the health, environmental, and economic costs of dependence on fossil‑fuel generators and highlighted the broader inequities in global infrastructure. Matthews has described these formative experiences as central to her later commitment to designing decentralized, resilient energy solutions that would work in the kinds of communities she knew through her Nigerian heritage.^{[5][8][10][12]}

Matthews attended local schools in Poughkeepsie before enrolling at Harvard College, where she studied psychology and economics.^[1][6] The combination gave her a grounding in human behavior and decision‑making alongside quantitative economic analysis. She has later framed this training as crucial to her approach to invention: instead of starting from technology and searching for applications, she focuses on people’s lived experiences, incentives, and constraints, and then works backward toward appropriate technical solutions.^[6][10][17]

Harvard Years and the Invention of the SOCCKET

While an undergraduate at Harvard, Matthews enrolled in a course and project environment that encouraged students to develop socially impactful technologies.^[1][5] Around this time she was in her late teens; several biographical profiles report that she was 19 when she conceived and helped build the prototype of what became the SOCCKET.^[5][12][17] The concept emerged as she reflected on the ubiquity of soccer in many parts of the world, especially in Nigeria, and asked whether the kinetic energy generated by play could be harvested to provide off‑grid electricity.

Working with classmates, Matthews co‑created the SOCCKET, a soccer ball with an internal mechanism that converted motion into electrical energy and stored it in a battery that could later power small devices such as LED lamps.^[1][5] The idea was to turn an everyday recreational object into a micro‑generation device that fit seamlessly into daily life. Unlike conventional generators, the ball produced no direct emissions, made no disruptive noise, and required no fuel other than play.

The SOCCKET attracted early attention on campus and within innovation circles as a striking example of human‑centered design for development. It bridged multiple fields—mechanical engineering, materials science, product design, and behavioral science—while also embodying a playful aesthetic that made high‑impact technology accessible to children and families.^[5][8] For Matthews, the project also served as her introduction to the practicalities of hardware development: sourcing components, testing durability, and considering how to manufacture at scale for use in challenging environments.

On 14 May 2009, while still a student, Matthews co‑presented the SOCCKET at the MIT 100K Entrepreneurship Competition, one of the earliest documented public presentations of the invention.^[5] The appearance signaled a shift from class project to a venture‑scale opportunity and introduced her to networks of investors, engineers, and social‑enterprise practitioners. It also cemented her public identity as a young Black woman inventor using playful technology to address energy poverty.

Founding Uncharted Play / Uncharted Power

Recognizing that prototypes alone would not change energy access, Matthews decided to pursue commercialization. On 3 June 2010, at age 22, she founded Uncharted Play with co‑founder Aslan Cahill to bring the SOCCKET and related energy‑generating products to market.^[5] The company’s initial mission was to build "energy‑generating play products" that could both educate and provide practical power for communities with unreliable electricity.

An early wave of media coverage and institutional profiles quickly followed. During Women’s History Month 2011, a Delta Gamma feature highlighted Matthews as the inventor of the SOCCKET and a young entrepreneur translating a college project into a social enterprise.^[5] On 17 May 2011, the Lemelson Foundation published an inventor profile that traced the SOCCKET’s origins to her experiences with power outages in Nigeria and framed her as a socially responsible young inventor.^[5]

As the company matured, its mission expanded. An IPO Education Foundation profile noted in November 2013 that Matthews had begun developing additional energy‑generating products beyond the soccer ball, signaling a pivot from single device to product platform.^[5] By mid‑decade, Uncharted Play rebranded as Uncharted Power, reflecting its broader focus on building sustainable infrastructure systems rather than only play‑oriented devices.^[1][5][8]

Evolution into Sustainable Infrastructure and Smart Cities

Throughout the 2010s, Matthews steered Uncharted Power toward what she described as a "sustainable infrastructure" company working at city scale.^{[5][8][10][12][17]} The firm developed technologies that embedded power generation, data, and connectivity into everyday infrastructure components such as pavements and modular pavers. One flagship concept, sometimes referred to as the Uncharted System, sought to transmit, direct, and modulate energy beneath streets and sidewalks, opening the possibility of replacing or complementing overhead cables with safer, more resilient ground‑level transmission.^[8][10]

The company also worked on a vision‑AI product that used “smart photos” to assess energy‑efficiency opportunities in buildings, allowing for remote diagnostics and more equitable access to energy‑saving retrofits.^[5][17] Under Matthews’ leadership, Uncharted Power partnered with municipalities and communities—often in under‑resourced or historically marginalized areas—to pilot these systems, tying technological innovation to broader goals of climate resilience and environmental justice.^[5][10][17]

Media interviews and profiles during this period highlighted the challenges she faced as a young Black woman leading a hardware‑ and infrastructure‑focused startup. In a 2020 video conversation, Politico described her as an energy inventor and CEO raising capital from tech investors while building a renewable‑energy company around paver‑based transmission systems.^[8] Podcasts and speaking engagements framed her as a “professional troublemaker” and “disruptor of disruptors,” emphasizing her willingness to challenge both technological orthodoxies and the inequitable patterns of venture capital funding.^[10][12]

Over time, Matthews accumulated a growing patent portfolio. By 2019, a public program reported that she had 12 patents, and later profiles continued to note that she was listed on more than a dozen patents and applications related to energy and communications.^[5][8][12] These patents documented technical contributions beyond the original SOCCKET, including advances in modular infrastructure and data‑enabled power systems.

Education and Executive Development

While building Uncharted Power, Matthews continued her formal education. She completed her undergraduate degree in psychology and economics at Harvard University, integrating insights from behavioral science and economic incentives into her approach to product design and business strategy.^[1][6] She later earned an MBA from Harvard Business School, further strengthening her expertise in finance, operations, and organizational leadership.^[1][6][10]

This combination of technical curiosity, social‑science training, and business education became a hallmark of her public persona. Profiles and speaking biographies consistently emphasized that her work bridged disciplines: she was portrayed as simultaneously an inventor, entrepreneur, and social scientist, grounding her innovations in deep attention to human needs and systemic inequities.^[6][17]

Advisory Roles and Broader Influence

As her company’s profile grew, Matthews took on advisory and thought‑leadership roles. The Lemelson Foundation notes that she served as an advisor to the U.S. Department of Energy on modernizing infrastructure, bringing her perspective on distributed power, data, and smart cities to federal policy conversations.^[5] She also became a frequent keynote speaker at conferences on innovation, diversity, and sustainable development, where she discussed topics ranging from climate resilience to inclusive entrepreneurship.^[10][12][17]

Institutional speaker profiles emphasized her ability to communicate complex technical ideas in accessible language, often framing her talks around the proposition that "innovation belongs to everyone" and that lived experience—especially in marginalized communities—should be treated as a key asset in the invention process.^[6][10][17] Her advocacy extended to challenging traditional metrics of success in tech, urging investors and policymakers to prioritize community impact and long‑term resilience over short‑term returns.

Matthews’ leadership and visibility led to multiple recognitions. She was named to Forbes “30 Under 30,” received Black Enterprise’s Innovator of the Year award, and was honored as Harvard Foundation Scientist of the Year.^{[5][8][10][12]} These awards placed her alongside a small but growing cohort of Black women recognized for leadership in STEM entrepreneurship.

Transition Beyond Uncharted Power and Later Career

LinkedIn and other professional sources indicate that Matthews led Uncharted Power as CEO for roughly fifteen years, during which time the company evolved from a play‑product startup into a sustainable infrastructure firm and eventually sold its energy‑generating technology business.^[6] After this sale, she shifted her focus toward a new initiative, Lived Labs, described as an effort to "reclaim innovation for the rest of us" by expanding who sees themselves as innovators and how lived experience can drive world‑changing ideas.^[6]

In this phase of her career, Matthews increasingly emphasized investment, advising, and ecosystem‑building. She positioned herself as an investor and advisor, drawing on her experience navigating patenting, fundraising, and large‑scale infrastructure projects to support other entrepreneurs—particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds.^[6][10][12] This work continued her long‑standing commitment to democratizing innovation and ensuring that the benefits of new technologies are shared more equitably.

Personal Life

Publicly available sources focus largely on Matthews’ professional achievements and do not provide extensive detail about her private life. She has identified strongly with her dual Nigerian‑American identity, frequently referencing her family connections to Nigeria and the impact of visiting relatives in communities with unreliable electricity.^{[1][5][10][12]} This bi‑cultural background is central to her self‑presentation and to the communities she aims to serve through her work.

Matthews has also spoken about the emotional challenges of entrepreneurship, including stress, isolation, and the pressures of representing multiple marginalized identities in high‑stakes technology and investment spaces.^[8][10][12] She has framed her personal journey as one of learning to balance ambition with well‑being and has expressed interest in creating support structures that allow future founders—especially women of color—to thrive without sacrificing their health.

Awards and Honors

Across her career, Matthews has received a range of awards and honors that recognize both her technical creativity and her social impact. Among those cited in institutional and media profiles are:

• Forbes 30 Under 30, acknowledging her as a leading young entrepreneur and innovator.^{[5][8][10][12]}
• Black Enterprise Innovator of the Year, recognizing her contributions as a Black entrepreneur in technology.^[10][12]
• Harvard Foundation Scientist of the Year, honoring her achievements as a scientist and inventor associated with Harvard University.^{[5][8][10][12]}
• Inclusion in various women’s history and Black history features, including institutional profiles by Delta Gamma, 3BL Media, and the Lemelson Foundation, which collectively document her impact on energy, infrastructure, and inclusive innovation.^{[5][8][10][17]}

Many of these recognitions emphasize that Matthews broke ground as one of the few Black women leading a deep‑tech, hardware‑oriented startup in the energy sector, and that she did so while maintaining a strong focus on serving under‑resourced communities.

Legacy and Historical Significance

Although still in mid‑career, Jessica O. Matthews already occupies a distinctive place in early twenty‑first‑century women’s and Black history. She is widely cited as an example of a young Black woman inventor whose work moved from a college classroom to the global stage, influencing conversations about energy access, climate resilience, and the design of future cities.^{[5][8][10][12][17]}

Her legacy can be considered along several dimensions:

• Human‑centered energy technology – By turning a soccer ball into an electricity generator and later embedding power systems into infrastructure, Matthews reframed energy technology as something that should fit into people’s existing behaviors and cultural practices rather than demand radical lifestyle changes.
• Inclusive narrative of invention – Her story has been repeatedly featured in Women’s History Month and Black History Month coverage, helping expand popular understandings of who invents and what counts as invention. For many young people, particularly girls and students of African descent, she serves as proof that they can be both creative technologists and community‑rooted leaders.^[5][8][10]
• Systems‑level approach to infrastructure – Moving beyond the SOCCKET, Matthews pushed for integrated, data‑rich infrastructure solutions that address energy, connectivity, and resilience together. This systems thinking has influenced how municipal leaders, investors, and policymakers conceptualize "smart cities" and climate‑ready infrastructure.
• Advocacy for democratizing innovation – Through her later work as an investor, advisor, and founder of Lived Labs, she has argued that innovation must be reclaimed as a practice accessible to people in all communities, not just elite institutions. This perspective has helped shape emerging efforts to diversify entrepreneurial ecosystems and support community‑driven technology design.^[6][10][12]

Institutional profiles by organizations such as the Lemelson Foundation, Delta Gamma, 3BL Media, and major media outlets ensure that Matthews’ contributions are part of the documented record of women’s history in science and technology.^{[5][8][10][17]} As the energy transition and debates over infrastructure equity continue, her work provides a prominent example of how invention, entrepreneurship, and social justice can be woven together in practice.

Later Life and Ongoing Work

As of the mid‑2020s, Jessica O. Matthews remains professionally active and continues to shape debates about innovation, energy, and equity. After leading Uncharted Power for approximately fifteen years and overseeing the sale of its energy‑generating technology business, she turned her attention to Lived Labs and to investing in other founders.^[6] Her biography describes her as "currently building Lived Labs" while serving as an investor and advisor, indicating a sustained commitment to empowering a broader range of innovators.^[6]

She maintains a significant public presence through talks, interviews, and social media, and continues to be profiled by institutions that highlight her as a pioneering figure in sustainable infrastructure and inclusive entrepreneurship.^{[1][2][5][6][10][17]} With more than a dozen patents and a body of work that spans from playful energy devices to city‑scale infrastructure systems, Matthews’ ongoing career will likely remain an important subject for future historians of technology, gender, and race.