Yesterday in Cape Town, South Africa, President Obama talked about bringing energy and power to the continent of Africa. Today, President Obama is expected to reveal that part of his Africa energy plan involves a soccer ball that carries an electric generator inside.
From the White House transcript of Obama’s speech from yesterday:
And then today, White House aide Mike Froman explained the soccer ball idea to the press aboard Air Force One, as the pool report details:
POTUS will cite on Tuesday two women from Harvard who invented what’s called the “socket ball” — it’s a soccer ball that has a small electric generator inside a soccer ball. As kids kick it around all day, it generates electricity and stores it in a battery.
Mr. Froman said that he and Mr. Rhodes tested out the “socket ball” and that it will be demonstrated Tuesday (though it’s not clear that POTUS will kick the ball around or not.)
The pool reporter quotes Froman as saying, “Kids play soccer all day long. They take the thing, the ball home, and you can plug a lamp into it and they can read at night. Or they can plug a cell phone charger into it.”
“The key thing is to make it possible for our businesses to come in, help them understand what the opportunities are, help them address the risks that they see.”
“These roadblocks not only create delays but they create costs. At every roadblock there’s a cost involved, and if we can reduce those that’s a very positive development.”
