Black inventors get a boost
SCI-TECH SCENE
Calvin E. Flowers fought to preserve his patented invention, a telephone locking device, and now proudly sees it on store shelves nationwide at Walgreens.
"It's a simple way for parents to supervise their children's Internet use without the parents having to be computer literate," said Flowers, a longtime resident of Auburn Gresham.
(Keith Hale/Sun-Times)
The device, brought to market in 1999, secures the phone with a lock that's built into the phone jack.
Flowers, 55, credits his neighbors, who believed in his device and contributed more than $250,000 for seeing him through the patent process and its aftermath.
To encourage inventors, Flowers founded and leads the Chicago 1st Black Inventors/Entrepreneurs Organization (cfbieo.org).
The Chicago 1st Black Inventors/Entrepreneurs Organization boasts 150 members and has expanded its commitment to budding inventors in local schools.
The organization meets on the second Saturday of every month, when it hosts a professional schooled in the invention process, whether it's a buyer, a manufacturer or a prototyper.
"We help inventors find credible resources, not the stuff you see on late-night TV," Flowers said. "We don't want our members wasting precious money and time."
The Chicago 1st Black Inventors/Entrepreneurs Organization has received expert help from the Knapp Entrepreneurship Center at the Illinois Institute of Technology (KnappCenter.iit.edu).
The two have partnered to bring African-American would-be inventors' projects to IIT for prototyping. The plan is to give IIT's engineering students experience in designing and building a commercial product.
Willie Gamble, a retired machinist who lives in Roseland, intends to work with IIT to develop action figures, educational materials and electronic toys and games based on his "Super Souls of Zantrier" comic book featuring black superheroes.
The comic book, first published in 1996, is filled with references to famous and historical black people in street signs and the names of buildings, mountains and other sites.
"We found out that countries where kids read comic books regularly, like in Finland, have the highest reading scores in the world," Gamble said.
Linda Jacobs, whose late husband Willie invented "The Tilted Soup Bowl," a bowl with an angled bottom that helps disabled people manage more easily, is working with IIT and the black inventors' organization to market the invention more widely.
"I was asking for help marketing the product," Linda said.
The Tilted Soup Bowl, which Willie Jacobs invented because he was a disabled veteran, is now sold at Wal-Mart, on QVC and through Sammons Preston Rolyan catalogs. The bowls' molds were made by Tom Fafinski in Franklin Park, and they are manufactured by Warren Specialty Molding in Chicago because Jacobs insisted they be American made, his wife said.
Would-be inventors who create a tangible representation of their product will be able to get IIT's rapid-prototyping machine to spit out a model.
"The machine 'builds' whatever is on the drawing in a couple of hours," Flowers said. "The prototype gives the inventor credibility when he or she approaches potential investors or manufacturers."
The Knapp Enterpreneurial Center aims to build a community for developing entrepreneurs and their companies, said Nik Rokop, managing director.
The 1st Black Inventors/Entrepreneurs Organization also is sponsoring programs for the second year this fall for fourth- and fifth-graders at Higgins Academy and at Harold Washington Elementary School.
The children identify a consumer problem and design an invention to solve it.
Last year, the children and their families celebrated the designs at a "family night" at the Chicago Children's Museum. The program will be introduced at two Chicago high schools this fall.
