An Open Letter To The Uncharted Play Community
New Name, Who Dis?
At 12:00am Eastern Standard Time, on November 16th, 2017, Uncharted Play officially became Uncharted Power. Our mission, to democratize energy worldwide, has not changed. Nor has our vision — to create a world where everything that moves around us is a source of clean, convenient, affordable power — changed. Ultimately, the core of the company we are today, a company that believes in the power of collective humanity to cure societal ills, was born six and a half years ago and will remain with us forever.
With this in mind, in many ways, the switch from “play” to “power” is a relatively minor and unsurprising change amounting to the replacement of four letters with five. In fact, those closest to the company and our technology developments these past two years might ask, “What took you so long?”
It is a fair criticism. Two years ago, when we began the process of raising for what would become the largest Series A ever raised by a black female founder to date — we knew we were more than a play company. One year ago when we filed several patents on our amalgamation circuit breakthrough that allows for the efficient combination of multiple microgenerators to be used in energy harvesting infrastructure development — we knew we were more than a play company. Six months ago when we powered our first microgrid using power generated from vehicular traffic, we knew we were more than a play company.
Yet, to confidently change our name to Uncharted Power required not only the recognition that we were more than a play company, but more importantly, the willingness to imagine that all this time, we have been a “power company”. This was a harder task. We are a hyper diverse group of young, tinkering contrarians that have made Harlem, NYC our home. We are not what you think of when you think power company. We are not what WE think of when we think power company.
Why Do We Swim In Lanes When Life Is An Ocean?
But, perhaps that’s the problem. We felt comfortable — even safe — building a platform to provide electricity for the public good (which is literally all a power company is) behind the façade of a play company. We relished being underestimated because that meant we could build amazing things in “stealth mode” but it also meant that just in case we got too scared of our potential, we could run back to safety unnoticed.
We were afraid; I was afraid. I was afraid to step out of my lane and dare take on the established world of power and utilities where very few people who look like me exist. People have no problem with a black girl disrupting play, but power? I would tell myself that that was a different story…In fact, it was not until a government partner in Africa sat me down and said, “You are confusing the hell out of us. You are a power company. We understand that and as soon as you understand that, we will know how to truly work with you.” –that I realized we were long overdue for this name change.
This was not the first time I had an experience like this. Long before Uncharted Play was founded and only our flagship product, the SOCCKET, existed, a top executive at Coca Cola told me, “Listen, we all know what you have and we are very excited. But you have to become a business so people can do business with you.” This was prior to my attending business school during a time when I did not believe someone like me could or should be a CEO of a tech company…
Now You Know, You Know Nothing.
There is clearly a trend here. And I imagine most people who consider themselves underrepresented in their industries can relate to this feeling of needing to do twice as much to believe that we deserve to get half as far. But I share this story as a cautionary tale as we may be the only people who do not see us for what we are and what we are destined to be.
Uncharted Power is a power company. But we are not your average power company and we could not be more excited to show the world our power, redefined. We do not expect this to be easy. In fact, we graciously request your patience and support as we take on this momentous task. And in return, we promise to remain authentic. We promise to never forget where we started and how we started with all of you in our corner. And ultimately, we promise to try our best to take our impact seriously, be more than the sum of our parts, and — dare I say it — be more than play.
Looking forward,
Jessica O. Matthews
Founder + CEO
Uncharted Power
www.u-pwr.co