The Soccket soccer ball was invented by four women who met in a Harvard engineering class. Jessica Lin, Jessica Matthews, Julia Silverman, and Hemali Thakkar all wanted to provide energy to families in Africa. Through their ambition, they developed a ball that can produce 3 hours of light from just 15 minutes of play. The ball works by using an inductive coil mechanism to generate energy.

As the co-founder and CEO of Uncharted Play, Inc., Jessica Matthews drives the creative vision of an award-winning social enterprise with a mission to breed a generation of socially motivated innovators through dual functioning play products.

Named Huffington Posts Greatest Person of The Day in 2011, and the winner of several innovation awards including Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award, Jessica has been lauded for her development of socially relevant products.

Prior to Uncharted Play, Jessica has worked with an array of startups, most recently as the brand equity strategist for Crowdtap, a social media marketing platform for brands to gain marketing insights directly from consumers.

Julia Silverman is the co-founder of Uncharted Play Inc and the co-inventor of the SOCCKET. Her long-term interest is in entrepreneurial approaches to social progress.

Julia graduated with honors from Harvard University with a degree in Social Anthropology and Economics; her studies focused on development initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa. Julia has lived and worked all over Africa with notable field initiatives in Tanzania, Kenya, and South Africa.

Before founding Uncharted Play, Julia previously worked at the World Bank as a consultant for the Africa Sustainable Development department, and at Innosight, a consulting firm forinnovation strategy.

Now, as the Chief Social Officer at Uncharted Play, Julia oversees the distribution, curricular programming, and monitoring & evaluation for SOCCKET initiatives in communities in need around the world. She has received global recognition for this work, including awards from the Harvard Foundation, Fortune, Popular Science, the Women in theWorld Foundation, and McKinsey.

Engineering, Technology, Soccer, Futurism, Science and Technology Professionals, Inventors, Women in Tech