30 minutes of play with this soccer ball can create up to 3 hours of light, but how? It’s just a soccer ball. The creators of Soccket have figured out how to harness the kinetic energy created within the soccer ball as is it kicked around. Five Harvard graduates invented the initial patent with prototypes of the first Soccekt ball appearing in the media in early 2010

Source Uncharted Play

Uncharted Play, Inc. is the enterprise now in charge of the soccer’s balls patent and mass production, this was founded by two of the original inventors, Jessica O. Matthews and Julia C. Silverman. If you live in a well developed area you may be wondering how you would convince your computer and TV motivated kids to go outside and kick the ball around so that they could have light during the evening hours to do their homework, the chances may be slim. Soccekt was actually created for that 1/5th of the world that has limited access to light at night

Source Uncharted Play

Yahoo news reports that:

“The ball is distributed in six countries through local nongovernmental organizations, who are making sure it gets to the communities that can benefit the most. Yahoo! followed the ball to the small village of Yohualichan in Puebla, Mexico. Besides having a shiny new ball to play with, the indigenous kids used it to do their homework. The women used it to cook and sew after sundown, helping them sustain their main source of income. From the kick of a ball, the reality for these families was flipped around and their lives were forever changed for the better.”