Joel Williams Jr. is the inventor of the SmartButton, a button that audibly teaches children which foot is left and which is right. More recently, he has put together a motivational DVD that encourages young people to be creative. In the DVD he talks about experiences he has had as an inventor.
“I wanted to give back to the community in the sense of inspiring people,” Joel said. “I also wanted to put something positive out there.”
Williams was recognized for the SmartButton at the World Shoe Association. He also won Black Enterprise magazine’s Teenpreneur contest, was on the cover of the Teenpreneur workbook in the magazine and was the model for the Teenpreneur workshop.
Joel’s mother, Jessica, said he has always found creative ways to make money.
“We had a long driveway and he used to stand outside and charge his aunts and uncles to come in and park when they would come and visit,” she said.
The teen is now using his creativity to help others. Joel’s Web site and DVD give inventors an e-mail address to ask any questions they might have about the process of inventing and patenting products. He also has met with officials with the Temple school district about using his DVD in the classroom to encourage students to be creative.
“The Temple school district has helped Joel a lot,” Joel Williams Sr. said.
Joel said he has had ideas for new inventions since the SmartButton, but he can’t talk about them until he is closer to getting them patented. He plans to write a book with a more detailed story of his experiences with inventing and patents. The book will primarily target students in high school.
“It won’t be extremely difficult to read with a bunch of terms and words people won’t understand,” the younger Joel said.
The Williams said the process of seeing the invention through and getting a patent has been exciting, but long. They said inventors first must get a patent lawyer and then go through the process of filing a patent application. The application is then critiqued on whether the wording is too close to that of another invention. If it is, the inventor has to go back and fix the parts that are too similar.
“It’s mostly proving your idea is different from other ideas,” Joel Williams Sr. said.
Joel’s current goal is to get on “Oprah” with his SmartButton and DVD. They talked with representatives of the show about appearing on a “kid inventor segment” of the show.
“We’re hoping to get on ‘Oprah’ pretty soon,” Jessica Williams said.
Joel’s long-term goals involve being a role model for young inventors and to someday be an Imagineer for Disney. After high school he hopes to get an engineering degree so he can design rides for the theme parks.
