Jessica O. Matthews was only 19 when she invented an energy-generating soccer ball. She now runs a renewable energy company specializing in motion-based, miniaturized power systems, and has big plans for Africa.
Harvard University, one of the most prestigious institutions in the world, boasts among its laurels, 47 Nobel laureates, 32 heads of state and 48 Pulitzer Prize winners.
Competition for a place in the school is fierce. A staggering number of students around the world apply to enter Harvard, few secure admission. So when Jessica O. Matthews was asked to leave this elite establishment due to poor grades, it’s little wonder her world came crashing down.
“I would have been prepared to go to jail than to have the look my mum gave me when I told her I had to leave Harvard. She didn’t even speak, it was just a stare and that drives me to this day, I never want to let her down again,” says Matthews, today, the Founder and CEO of Uncharted Play, a hardware technology company in the United States (US).
As Matthews looks back on that experience, she can pinpoint the exact moment things went wrong.
“For the first 18 years of my life, I thought I had everything figured out. I ran track, I played tennis and I did well on the SATs. I didn’t place as much value in understanding the role that my parents had played in my life. They had created an invisible guiding force so when I left home it was a mess. My whole goal was to do well to get into university and I had no other goals apart from that. I was like ‘look I made it’, I thought everybody there was smarter than me because I didn’t go to an expensive high school,” says Matthews, in an interview with FORBES WOMAN AFRICA in Lagos in September last year.
The New York-based entrepreneur born to Nigerian parents, featured in FORBES 30 Under 30 list in 2014.
Growing up, her parents wanted her to be a doctor, lawyer or engineer. Matthews wanted to build things.
This story is from the February-March 2017 edition of Forbes Woman Africa.
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This story is from the February-March 2017 edition of Forbes Woman Africa.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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