For some, running up and down a soccer field with cleats clogged with blades of emerald green grass and dirt; vertical stripped alternating colored socks; mid-calf length shorts and a brightly hued short sleeve shirt is simply a way to have fun.

For those in developing countries that use the SOCCKET ball, it’s more than just play time. It’s an opportunity to create power and kick-start global change.

In 2008, junior year Harvard University social science students Jessica O. Matthews and Julia Silverman created the SOCCKET ball for an engineering class called “Idea Translation Lab.”  The SOCCKET — a 17 ounce soccer ball — harnesses energy when kicked.  After 30 minutes of motion, the ball can light a small LED lamp for up to 30 minutes.  It may also be used to charge such items as a cell phone, mini refrigerator or water purifier.

“‘Green’ is good business. As soon as people start seeing that, this means long-term economic and environmental sustainability. The global community will start to wholly embrace the concept. Yet global change also needs to come with investment,” Matthews, who comes from a Nigerian family, told AFKInsider via e-mail.

Although the creators of the ball lacked engineering experience, Matthews and Silverman had a desire to take the ball beyond the walls of their Ivy-league classroom and offer it to the world.  In May 2011, Matthews and Silverman continued their mission by founding Uncharted Play which is a “new kind of social enterprise that would show the world that doing good and doing good business need not be mutually exclusive,” the company site said.

A half-an-hour of light or goofing around with a ball may not seem like much to some, but it can greatly impact a child who may lack electricity in their home.  Many children in developing countries study at night crouched under street lamps, or they inhale harmful fumes in their homes while using a kerosene lamp.

According to the International Energy Agency: “over 1.3 billion people are without access to electricity. More than 95 percent of these people are either in sub-Saharan Africa or developing Asia and 84 percent are in rural areas,” an energy poverty statement said.

During a distribution trip in Puebla, Mexico, Matthews recalls meeting a 7-year-old boy named Gustavo Martinez, his parents, eight siblings and three cousins.  The family survived on the parents’ weekly salary of only four dollars.  Energy deprived, the Martinez family did not have electricity or running water.

“The children love to play fütbol.They spend a lot of time in the field after school, once they have done their chores at home. Then with the light of the SOCCKET ball, Gustavo and his siblings can complete their homework, his mother can cook and make tortillas, and they can have dinner all together,” Matthews said.

Gustavo, who plays soccer after school, told Matthews:  “I have a lot of fun with the SOCCKET ball and at night we have some light so I don’t feel afraid anymore.”

Though kid-friendly, the SOCCKET  ball wasn’t created just to improve the lives of children — it helps working women as well.  Yohualichan women in Mexico who sew and sell blouses have found a use for the energy producing SOCCKET ball.

“It’s a traditional art craft of the region. The SOCCKET ball helps them to stay later sewing and [making] more blouses that they can sell in Cuetzalan, increasing their hours of productivity and their earning potential,” Matthews added.