5 Questions for...Jessica Matthews, Co-Founder of Uncharted Play

When we first heard the story behind Uncharted Play, we were amazed: Co-founders Jessica Matthews and Julia Silverman were Harvard undergraduates when they invented the SOCCKET, a soccer ball that doubles as a charger for small electronic devices like LED lamps, cell phones, and even hot plates. Inspired by their time spent in developing countries—both girls watched local youth play soccer games—the ball is designed to appeal to kids while helping families who don’t have safe power sources in their homes. Impressively, 30 minutes of playing with the SOCCKET ball can yield three hours of light. Now, the entrepreneurs are busy distributing the balls in countries ranging from South Africa to Argentina. We sat down with Jessica to learn more about the world-changing work she and her teammates are doing at Uncharted Play.

StartSomeGood's Newest Campaigns

Uncharted Play produces products that utilize the power of play to solve important global issues including energy access, health, and climate change. The SOCCKET is Uncharted Play’s first product, a soccer ball that acts as an eco-friendly portable generator. Send the SOCCKET soccer ball to Brazil has a $2,960 tipping point that will cover the costs associated with production of the balls and implementing a play program for children in Brazil.

MOMTraders is a platform where mothers can go to trade their unused items for things they need. The goal is to have a local MOMTrader network for each county in the United States where MOMs can support and provide for each other by trading their unwanted items. The campaign’s tipping point will cover the costs of programming a basic beta site with over 3,000 functioning local trader networks.

Kinyei has two socially responsible businesses that promote social entrepreneurship—a bike tour and a training cafe, both of which work together empower the youth of Cambodia to work together to improve themselves and their communities. The bike tour stimulates the local Cambodian economy while also providing insight for tourists into what life is like in rural Cambodia. The cafe provides a space where community members and travelers can come to share ideas, news, and culture. The campaign, Coffee Cycling and Community, is raising funds to train Kinyei staff to manage these two businesses so they become locally driven and run. Kinyei needs $12,000 to implement an 18-month management training program for four high potential Cambodians.

The North Korean Human Rights Film Festival (NKHRFF) has a goal to share the stories of human oppression that are occurring in North Korea through the medium of film. The only way to ignite action is through awareness. The film festival will help raise awareness of the humanitarian crisis in North Korea. Help Launch the North Korean Human Rights Film Festival. This campaign’s tipping point will help launch the film festival, covering the costs that go into securing a venue and rights for film distribution.

Real Good Food is a trading, sales, and organizational platform for cooks at home and local food artisans to discover and celebrate the good food in their own local economies. It is developing a user interface for users to post and search for local food, join/create groups, and host/participate in local food events. When people can purchase foods from local artisans that they know and trust, there is full transparency in the origin of the food and, hence, the system will encourage healthier people and healthier local economies. The campaign will help Real Good Food build a working platform for anyone’s use.

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Uncharted Play

A big THANK YOU! to my first Tumblr follower, Uncharted Play. This is a really cool company with an even cooler concept.

Uncharted Play is what I refer to as a social enterprise. Simply put that means that they are running a business, and have to do “businessy” things like market and pay employees, but their mission is to make a real impact on the world. Uncharted Play defines their mission as:

To create fun products and services that allow people to rethink the function of play both as a tool to address major issues facing society today and as a way to keep joy at the forefront of our lives.

How cool is that? Not only are they running a business, they are making a difference.

Now what is even cooler is this contraption you see pictured at the top of the post. You know that if some has a fascinating gadget I’m going to be all about it. This is the Soccket. At first glance you would think that it is a soccer ball, and you would be right. What makes this ball unique is that there is a gyroscopic mechanism inside of it that generates power and stores the power for later use. So the kids can take it out for an afternoon and kick the mess out of it. When they bring it home they have a six watt power supply that can be used to do anything from run a lamp to charge a phone, or even run a water sterilizer. When the power discharges, guess what? It’s time to go play soccer again! So a family gets power that it otherwise wouldn’t have, and the kids have lots of good reasons to exercise. Everybody wins! The Soccket reportedly can provide three hours of light after only 30 minutes of play.

At Uncharted Play’s site you can send one of these to your choice of under developed areas for $60. Nice. They also sell t-shirts for $30 in order to raise funds for an area that is in need. Even nicer.

You can also follow Uncharted Play’s Tumblr here.

Thanks again for the follow guys! My best to you on fulfilling your mission. I look forward to seeing what you do.

Soccket - harnessing the power of football

Image via Unchartered Play

Two weeks ago we showed you a solar-powered light that could replace dangerous and expensive kerosene lamps.

Today’s technology features an even more ingenious power source: kicking a football.

The Soccket contains a kinetically-powered pendulum to generate and store electricity. A 30 minute kick-about scores around three hours of light from an attachable LED lamp - much longer than any kid should be spending on his or her homework.

Development’s been funded by Kickstarter. Find out how you can buy one from Uncharted Play, its makers.

A percentage of sales will go towards providing Socckets to schools in the developing world.