I SCOURED THE AISLES OF A SECONDHAND STORE on a mission for any pair of sneakers I could find from the late ’90s. The smell of disinfectant flooded my nostrils, and I was overcome with a feeling of panic. I mean, how hard could it be to find a pair of shoes that lit up when someone walked in them? I asked myself ironically. While I poured over bins of discarded clothes and household items, I reflected on the academic project I had taken on during my final year at the University of Michigan.
On the first day of school, I had gone to my mentors and informed them that I wanted to create the next form of alternative energy. I tingled with excitement as I told them my idea—I was going to design systems that generated electricity from human kinetic energy. But I was only met with dumbfounded looks on my professors' faces. My heart sank as they gently reminded me, “This is fantastic, but you are a designer and artist—not an engineer.”
Just then a dirty white and red sneaker caught my eye. At last! I picked it up and whacked it against my hand, sending the light at the bottom rocketing into bright, perfectly timed flashes. Relief washed over me. This was exactly the type of energy I wanted to harness, only on a much larger scale.
I had been working my way through a physics class and meetings with brilliant minds in university when I stumbled upon the idea of piezoelectricity, a type of kinetic energy that sparks an electric charge through applied physical strain. It's a naturally occurring phenomenon present in materials like sand, ceramics, and quartz. If you ever dragged your feet on the beach on a hot, dry day and heard a squeaking noise, that was the piezoelectric effect. I knew how to generate electricity with big clunky motors that need to rotate and move back and forth, but I was searching for a way to generate electricity on an entirely new scale: a nano- or at least microscale. I needed to harvest vibrations, rather than movement.
That is much easier said than done. But I am not a woman that shies away from hard work, the value of which was made clear to me at the tender age of three when I learned how to ride a two-wheeled bike. My family lived out in the country on a dirt road, and anyone who has ever tried to ride with training wheels on gravel would understand why I wanted them taken off—the gravel makes it nearly impossible to balance. One day, my dad brought home a beautiful brass bicycle horn and told me it would be mine when I learned how to ride on a two-wheel bike. The horn was the first thing I remember receiving that I didn't really need and that wasn't a hand-me-down. I was honored and determined.
Every night when my dad got home from work, we went outside and practiced long after it got dark. At the end of our lessons, I got to honk my horn just once to remind me what I was working toward. I was intoxicated with motivation and a desire for graduation. After a few tirelessly long weeks, I finally rode all the way across the twenty-foot (6.1-meter) concrete landing to the other side, up and down ten times on my two wheels. I was a cyclist! I don't remember honking the horn much after we actually installed it on my bike, but it did continue to play an iconic role in my life as I grew up. I transplanted the horn from bike to bike as I outgrew old ones. It has become a symbolic part of my life. It proved that with a little determination, I could accomplish what I set out to do.
But despite my I-can-do-anything-I-put-my-mind-to ambition, I was beginning to think that I was in over my head with this project. You see, I had set out to accomplish something that had never been proven by anyone in the world while only taking junior-level physics. My task at hand included finding piezoelectric components, identifying the correct wattage output, the certain impedance match to the electronics, and so on. I was beginning to let my doubt lead me into pits of discouragement. It was then that my mentor came to me and said, “Remember those light-up sneakers kids wore some years back?” He told me there were piezoelectric generators in them that were used to activate the circuit of lights. With those words, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck raise with excitement. How do I find out? I asked myself. Go find yourself a pair and take them apart! I left my studio desk and drove straight to the Salvation Army resale.
I left the store with three pairs of light-up shoes. Once back at the studio, what I discovered was a little piezoceramic sheet that, when stimulated, created a charge. The charge was great enough to send a signal to the circuit board, which told the lights to dance in the shoes. Ah, ha! It worked! Inspired, I rigged the shoe circuits up in a set of small glass and concrete tiles that I had cast in a ceramic studio. When one stepped on the tile, the glass moved down to stimulate the circuit and send the lights into action. Four tiles lined up in a strip; a walk across it would create energy with endless uses. I knew that the mock-up I was constructing may seem unimpressive. It was only, after all, six pairs of L.A. Gear light-up shoes from the Salvation Army, cast concrete from Home Depot, and cuts of glass from an artist friend. The mock-up to most probably looked whipped together like any old art school project, but to me, it held the key to a world of possibility.
That next week, I organized a little installation at a gallery opening in town to test the mock-up against a little foot traffic. My excitement regarding the technological progress I had made was quickly replaced by anxiety. Would people understand it? Would they share my vision? My goal was to see if my newfound gadget could handle the heavy traffic and how people would react to the idea of generating their own electricity. The morning of the event, I braced myself for the feedback I would receive, skipping breakfast while coping with waves of anxiety. There was no turning back now ... all I could do was step aside and watch as the technology was utilized by my unknowing test subjects.
I watched as people took tentative steps across the tiles, creating tiny flashes of lights as they shuffled. One by one, each person registered a look of shock and awe as they realized that they had harnessed their own energy, marveling at the possibilities.
We began to party.
The exhibition was a huge success. At first, I could barely stand to look at the people in the art gallery, in fear that they couldn't “get it” or would think the whole idea was stupid. Once I felt brave enough to open my eyes to the joyous wonder of the group's reaction, I noticed the very evident truth that people were sharing my vision. They were dancing, jumping, walking, running, and even doing handstands on my mock-up.
That day was only the beginning. The nagging fear and doubt was cast aside, and intuitively, I knew I was about to create something that could change the world. The success of my innovation had resulted in a prestigious undergraduate award, which I quickly put to use to pay for the incredibly expensive materials for my final thesis prototype.
But I was hooked. The high from my exhibition fueled my passion for the project. I knew I needed to go forward; burning out was not an option, but burned out I was. The last year had been a whirlwind of activity, and I was emotionally and financially exhausted. Sick and tired of being broke, I took a job working for my sister, Sara Snow, as an assistant on her TV show Get Fresh with Sara Snow. My days were filled with research, content consulting, and contacting guests for the show. My sister and I referred to this time as “the apprenticeship program.” While I wasn't sure what my next step was in life, I knew that I was anxious to discover it.
It was a day off, and I was taking the afternoon to get caught up on some magazine reading. When I was a student, I enjoyed perusing design magazines, but working full time had left little time for leisure reading. I lay across my bed with a hot cup of tea and leafed through Metropolis Magazine until I came across a page with these words in big, bold letters: NEXT GENERATION DESIGN COMPETITION. I nearly choked on my tea as I read the theme for the 2007 competition: Energy. The call for entries was practically begging for my thesis work. My break was over. It was time to get back to my own work and inspire the next wave of energy innovation.
I went to work putting together my submission. The process went smooth, and I had a strong feeling that I was meant to do this. I labeled the application “Project Power Struggle” and mailed it to the magazine. I occupied myself in my work for my sister, anxiously waiting to hear back. While it was exciting to think about what it might be like to win, and I had high hopes, I knew I might not. This was an international competition, and while my work had been well received by the experts at the art exhibit, I had no idea how it would fare after being judged by leading experts in the field. They would love it or hate it, I suppose. Either way, it was worth trying.
I didn't have to wait long. I was on a long weekend from work and went to Ohio to visit my good friend from college Mavilya (Mia) Chubarova. Mia was my partner in crime at university. Our art studios were next to each other, and we were the only ones who stayed into the wee hours of the night plugging away at our projects. We had passion, and we were like sisters. As you can imagine, the magazine submission was far from my mind the moment I arrived in Columbus and saw Mia. As we sat giggling over a shared joke, my cell phone rang. I answered it for some reason, which is rare because I am a notorious screener.
It was the editor from Metropolis Magazine. My heart skipped a beat as she informed me that I had been selected as a runner-up in the competition. Her voice was warm and friendly, and her support for the project became clear: “Now I only request one thing—that you come up with a better name than Project Power Struggle. What is that? This is a fantastic and exciting product that can change people's behavior and the world! Show it!”
As I hung up the phone, I had goose bumps from her words. It took a moment to truly realize the potential of this opportunity. I looked at Mia; she knew exactly what had just ensued. We cried with excitement, opened a bottle of champagne, and immediately took out a piece of paper to start brainstorming names as we used to do in school. Our favorites: the Electric Stride and POWERleap.
After the weekend, I immediately went back to work on the project, as I had to prepare for a reception ceremony in San Francisco. It would be the first time I would present my innovation under its new name, POWERleap. After the excitement of the editor's phone call, doubt and anxiety crept back into my life. I realized that although my idea was fresh, I didn't have a prototype that I felt was appropriate to show off at the reception. Suddenly, I felt too young and foolish to be taken seriously. After all, I would be competing against seasoned engineers and professional designers. Who was I? I was a recent graduate working for my sister.
The night before the reception, I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about my pitch and how I would talk about POWERleap. I was overwhelmed by confusion— so much to say and only one shot! I was scared of being made out a fool, to say the least. That morning I had breakfast with my brother Joe in San Francisco. Joe is four years older than me, and he was always one of my biggest fans. Sitting across from my eggs over easy and toast, he could tell my head was hanging low. He reminded me of the day I learned how to ride a bike. “Remember how determined you were? You were taken over by this goal. Just remember what it is you want to accomplish today, and you are going to touch the masses.” That conversation stuck with me all day, and when I walked into the showroom, all of my fears had melted away. I didn't have an idle moment.
The week after the reception ceremony, I was contacted by Mohawk Group—a global commercial carpet manufacturer. They were cosponsors of the competition that year and, to my great pleasure, they took quite a liking to POWERleap. They followed up after the reception with some phone and email correspondence to learn more about my project and its direction. Before I knew it, I was being flown into Atlanta for a meeting. As a result of the meeting, they agreed to give me a ten-thousand-dollar grant to build my Next Generation prototype to be showcased on a segment for the Sundance Channel. Working day and night, I frantically studied and tried putting everything together before the television shoot. Everything started to come together quickly—I incorporated my business, collected two business partners, launched a website, spoke with fifty-plus potential commercial customers, and filed a provisional patent. I started getting emails and calls from media outlets like National Public Radio, the New York Times, and TreeHugger.com all remarking on the possibilities of the project and wanting to report it to the world.
PHOTO BY POWERLEAP
At the time of this writing, we are finalizing a business agreement and planning our first set of commercial pilot installations. We have a number of customers lined up to be our initial testers, and finally I can tell them approximately when our doors will open. POWERleap today is not just a new source of alternative energy, it also represents an alternative pathway of how we can think about and take responsibility for the energy we use.
I consider myself an entrepreneur working for the planet. I realize that working within corporate models for change isn't seen as the traditional form of activism, but I feel as though I have defined my own form of activism. I never imagined myself owning an American business and sustaining myself through a capitalist market system. Yet when the opportunity presented itself, I didn't turn it away. I don't operate my business in a way that lets life go by, selfishly taking without giving back. Instead, I found a way to harness my passion and commitment to environmental activism into full-time work that is rewarding personally, financially, and environmentally. I strongly feel that we are a global network. All our individual choices create a ripple effect and will eventually impact millions. Once we realize that, we can each find our own place and let the ripples move further and further out. For this reason, I remain dedicated to developing technology that goes beyond harnessing the energy of the wind and sun. To truly make the switch from dirty fossil fuels, we need to exhaust every possibility of energy production, which calls for continual research, innovation, and guts. And I'm happy to drive that train in any way I can.
When I was a three-year-old learning to ride a bike, I refused to let go of a dream. Today, that dream is not a brass horn, but a new kind of energy future. And for me to achieve that dream, it means running a company that will hopefully one day change the way we use energy in a more sustainable and productive way. With the state of our planet right now, that day can't come soon enough.
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Elizabeth Redmond is the president and director of POWERleap Inc., a cleantech company that generates electricity from pedestrian and vehicular traffic. Since its inception in 2006, POWERleap has now grown to become a global corporation showcased on the Discovery Channel, Sundance Channel, The New York Times, and Forbes. Elizabeth plans to continue to use design to fuel the engines of change and innovate alternatives for our future.
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PHOTO BY JO-ANNE MCARTHUR