SHE’S ELECTRIC

In college, Jessica O. matthews, founder and Ceo of Uncharted Power, cocreated soccket, a soccer ball that gathers and stores the kinetic energy generated when it’s kicked around. she later began to search for ways her Motionbased off-grid renewable energy (More) technology could provide cost-efficient power to the developing world. Matthews, now 31, first raised $7 million; her newest investor is Disney.

What challenges did you face as you shifted focus?

The first year, the “team meeting” is just you looking in the mirror. as Ceo my job is to set strategy and recruit. That was hard—I love the lab and love to build things. but as we grew, I realized that was no longer the place for me.

When did you know you could be more than just a developer of cool toys?

It was about solving a problem I saw every time I visited family in Nigeria. The problem is infrastructural, but energy and infrastructure are huge, scary problems. That was my epiphany: we aren’t a soccer-ball company; we’re a tech company.

You’ve said you don’t want Uncharted Power to become a typical tech startup. Why?

we have a diverse team based in Harlem. If we’re serving a global market, we can’t forget how diverse the world is. It’s huge and also very small—because we all have the same basic needs, including access to clean energy.