Missing Son Scare Leads to Father’s Fortune as Inventor of Locator-Embedded Kid’s Shoe

Date: Friday, June 15, 2007
By: Patrice Gaines, BlackAmericaWeb.com


This Father’s Day is particularly special for Isaac Daniel. The world, you could say, is awaiting the arrival next month of his invention, a shoe that holds a computerized tracking device and has the potential to save lives. It is a creation sparked by this father’s love for his son.

When his first child was born, Isaac Daniel gave him a name from the Yoruba language of Daniel’s maternal grandmother. “Olamide means 'my wealth comes,'” said Daniel, who was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama.

At the time he named his son Olamide, he could not know how prophetic the name would be. Now, with orders coming in from around the world for Daniel’s shoe, it’s a good bet the inventor will soon be a wealthy man. And he has Olamide to thank.

It all started one day in April of 2002. Daniel had gone to New York to meet with some shoe designers.

“I got a phone call from his school saying Olamide was missing,” he recalled. “It was around April 1st, and the lady was so calm, I thought it was some April fool’s joke.”

But the call was real. School officials had found Olamide’s backpack, but after a search, they couldn’t find him. A scared and worried Daniel immediately hopped on a plane for Atlanta.

Before he arrived, his son had been found.

It turns out that Olamide had simply gotten out of the line where he had been waiting on the school bus and dashed back into the building to use the bathroom. Still, for days Daniel reeled from the incident.

“It was scary,” he told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

Before that day, Daniel, a former scientific analyst for the United Nations, focused his creative energy on using the latest technology to design a more comfortable shoe, experimenting with all kinds of new materials. After the incident with his son, he began thinking about how computer technology could be used to identify the exact location of a missing person within minutes.

"I realized that if the school had this technology, it would help them look for children,” he said.

He was fixated with the idea, and for the next five years, he conducted research and worked on a design until the idea for the Compassâ„¢ sneaker was born. The shoe uses its patented Quantum Satellite Technologyâ„¢ (QST) with GPS tracking abilities. The GPS technology is embedded into 2-inch by 3-inch microcomputers linked to four global satellites.

When a person is in trouble, all he has to do is push a button on the shoes. The alarm generates an emergency signal to the company’s ID Conex monitoring station, which pinpoints the shoes’ location anywhere in the world. The whereabouts of the wearer is then communicated to law enforcement authorities. Similarly, if a child or adult who is missing is wearing the sneaker, a parent or caregiver can call ID Conex with the unique number assigned to the sneaker, and the shoes can then be located almost immediately.

This is Daniel’s second time designing a shoe. He created his first after a niece broke her ankle during a cheerleading maneuver. She was in therapy for six months, and Daniel says he vowed that “I would make a better shoe for her, one that would make sure that this didn’t happen again.”

He was still working at the United Nations at the time, but researched the project enough to find out that “it was a very expensive endeavor. I tried to back out of the deal with her.”

But a promise is a promise, and Daniel was raised in a family with a culture that places great respect and significance on keeping your word. He resigned from his job at the United Nations and devoted his time to developing a shoe for his niece. He came up with a design that was comfortable, safe and quickly became popular, he said.

“I was the first person to design a shoe where you could change the logo on the shoe,” said Daniel. “You could put it on or off. I think they use it now for golf shoes.”

He said he was selling a lot of shoes, but he had failed to patent the idea, so his design was copied by other companies. The experience taught him there was money in shoes, and that was why he was in New York meeting with designers when Olamide was reported lost.

Now, Daniel has built two companies -- a manufacturing company and a security firm -- with his own money and with investments made by friends and family who believe in him, he said. He relocated to Miami, where he found a building that fit the security requirements needed to house the data for each shoe.

Olamide, now 13, and Daniel’s two other sons, aged 12 and 10, remain in Atlanta with their mother. The Daniels are divorced, and he recently remarried. Daniel’s own father, a former Army career man, died last year. The businessman will spend this Father’s Day weekend with his three sons, who are visiting for the summer.

“I asked them where they wanted to go, and they said Key West,” he said. “It’s a city they love.”

Daniel says he marvels at the sight of Olamide, his rapidly-growing, eldest child.

“I can’t believe Olamide is taller than me. He’s over six feet!” said Daniel, laughing. “I look at him and can’t believe he is the same little boy who was lost.”

quote:

The shoe uses its patented Quantum Satellite Technologyâ„¢ (QST) with GPS tracking abilities. The GPS technology is embedded into 2-inch by 3-inch microcomputers linked to four global satellites.

I'm all for this. I'd like to see the technology develop to the point where the system can be installed in any shoe or article of clothing, so that it can be used as a tool against pedofilic predators. If the shoes are all one brand, we'll just end up with a lot of shoeless victims.

Yeah, but I'm wondering though ... as long as it's a whole shoe and not just the chip, he would have rights to inventing it, right??

Will he still be able to collect if, say, Nike, develops it's on version to just slip in any shoe or piece of clothing??

From the article, I believe the chip and gps tracking system is what he has patented.