A letter from Jess.

For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to be an inventor.

The reason that dream came true is because of one class I took in college — a class called Idea Translation: Affecting Change Through Art and Science. It was the only place available to me that actually had the resources, the structure, and the guidance to help someone become an inventor.

At the time, I didn't consider myself an artist. But I trusted my ability to look at the world and know what was beautiful and what was good. I didn't consider myself a scientist either. But when I looked up the word in the dictionary, I learned it means the study of life. So I figured, if I'm living, I'm halfway there. Why not try?

I used my lived experience as the baseline. The class gave me the rest. And that's how, at 19 years old, I invented the SOCCKET — an energy-generating soccer ball that harnesses the kinetic energy from play to power lamps and small off-grid appliances. That one invention launched a nearly two-decade career building category-defining technology across energy and infrastructure.

My patents have been cited more than 45 times by companies including Sony, Qualcomm, Intel, and Toshiba. The Smithsonian even recognized my work as a modern-day inventor. I was invited to represent inventors on stage at the White House during the signing of the America Invents Act. I served two terms advising the U.S. Department of Energy. Being an inventor opened doors I never expected — letting me work as an entrepreneur, a stateswoman, and an advisor on problems ranging from rural electrification to smart city infrastructure.

Here's what all of that taught me.

Innovation is the ability to see the world not only as it is but as it could be — and to believe you can play a role in making that vision real.

Innovation is a fight. It isn't linear. It's messy, painful, and ugly in the middle. It will often feel like getting punched in the gut. The only real skill is getting back up.

Innovation is hope. Once you start to live it as a perspective and not an event or a title, it changes how you see every challenge. Nothing is final. Everything you don't like about the world is just something that hasn't been invented yet.

Unfortunately, most of what we call innovation today isn't doing any of that. It's optimized for the performance of innovation. The branding of it. The anointing of it. It rewards people who look and sound like innovators more than it rewards people actually solving problems. Over time, that creates something closer to theater than invention.

Lived Labs is my answer to this problem. It is what I wish had existed from the moment I knew I wanted to invent.

I was lucky enough to get into a great school with the resources to help me become an inventor. But what about everybody else? Lived Labs is for everybody else. It's for the 85-year-old with an idea she's carried for decades. It's for the teenager who already notices things nobody else does. It's for anyone who might never set foot in a class like I did — and shouldn't have to.

This is my chance to share everything I've picked up from every room I've been in — so you don't have to get into those rooms to realize that you already have everything you need to create the world you want.