INVENTOR of the MONTH

Joel Williams: Learning Right from Left

Learning their right shoe from their left shoe can be a major challenge for the very young and the mentally challenged. When Joel Williams was nine years old, he noticed that his two-year-old sister would put her shoes on the wrong feet. Like a good inventor, Joel sought to solve what he saw as a problem. His solution was a button that attaches to the shoelace or to the Velcro strap of a shoe. When the child pressed the button, a voice would say “This is you left shoe” or “This is your right shoe,” depending on which shoe it was. The voice can be selected to speak in either English or Spanish. Joel has filed a patent application for his invention, which he calls the SMARTBUTTON.

Joel’s invention received great reviews at the World Shoe Association Convention, held in Las Vegas. The product has also earned front-page articles in several newspapers. Joel was nominated to be a Teenpreneur of the Year. Teenpreneur is an award given each year by Black Enterprise Magazine. On May 10, 2007, he won the award. His invention is selling well on his Internet Web site.

Joel Williams was born on February 27, 1994, in Temple, Texas. He is a seventh- grade honor student whose interests, in addition to inventing, are writing, acting, and playing the saxophone and piano. Joel’s primary role models are his father (a mechanical engineer) and his mother (a medical transcriptionist). Other inspirations are Dr. Daniel Hale Williams (a Black physician who was the first to perform open-heart surgery), Drayton McClane Jr. (billionaire and owner of the Houston Astros), Walt Disney, and Stephen King. Joel hopes to be a good example himself, and a role model to other children across the nation.

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