Innovation Alert: The Shoe that Powers Your Cell Phone
Imagine strolling down the canals of New York City with a giant, perfectly folded slice of NY pizza in hand. As you devour that wonderfully crispy, yet gooey triangle of happiness, a dreadful thought enters your happy place. Your cell phone is almost dead and, well you need it because it does everything! Then you remember; “Wait, aren’t I wearing my shoes that have been generating electricity the whole time I’ve been plodding along the canals of New York City devouring pizza!” With a smile and bite, you happily continue on because you indeed decided to wear those shoes today and your cell phone won’t die on you! This epicurean dream isn’t some Homer Simpson fantasy sequence, but rather it is an innovation coming to a shoe near you. Now, my example above might be quite pedestrian, but even taking a moment to think about this seriously; who wouldn’t want the ability to generate their own electricity simply by walking around?
Do you think U.S. military members who carry pounds and pounds of batteries would like to see this innovation brought to their boots to greatly lighten their load? Do you think mothers and fathers would purposefully purchase the shoes that keep their teen’s mobile phone charged? Do you think ‘that guy’ at your local Starbucks with his tablet, laptop, fitbit, and phone all currently being used would love an innovation that provided him some extra ‘juice’ when he needed it on-demand? And how about generating all this electricity in a completely sustainable way, think folks might want this? Yeah, I think so too. So when I saw this innovation first-hand at an Open Innovation community event up in the Merrimack Valley (north of Boston), I thought this savvy audience would like to learn about it as well, so I invited Larry Grumer, the co-founder and CEO of Energy Harvesters, LLC to join us on the latest edition of TopCoder Interviews. Enjoy the video!
For more information on Energy Harvesters and their remarkable innovation, visit their website and contact their team here. We wish Larry and his team the best of luck in bringing this innovation to market!
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image credit: darthmojo.wordpress.com, prevention.com