In The News

Isaac Daniel’s Revolutionary GPS Sneakers

January 2007

Isaac Daniel’s firm, Isaac Daniel, LLC – maker of the world’s first shoe line featuring a GPS tracking system – continues to gain national and international attention, the 38-year-old entrepreneur can credit his success to hard work, education, experience, and vision, as well as his niece and son.

In 1996, Daniel promised his niece – who had broken her ankle during cheerleading practice – that if she went through the painful rehabilitation process, he would design a shoe to protect her ankle.

Following the rehab, Daniel kept his part of the bargain, designing and making a custom pair of sneakers with shock-absorbing insoles for the 15-year-old. At the time, Daniel worked for the United Nations as a scientific analyst, recommending funding for various UN projects. He had no idea of the high cost of shoe production.

“I was shocked at the expenses involved,” says Daniel with a smile, recalling the $55,000 he spent, most of which was the cost of the mold. “That was a very expensive promise.”

Daniel did graduate work in computer-science research at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. With his cousin and best friend, he already had a successful business importing cocoa beans. Their company had contracts with suppliers for M&Ms, Nestlé Chocolate, and Hershey. Still, the experience with his niece’s shoes led him to ponder the possibilities of state-of-the-art footwear.

“I became,” he says with a chuckle, “a shoe guy.” Of course, that is something of an understatement. Sort of like saying Alexander Graham Bell was a “telephone guy” or Bill Gates is a “software guy.”

Daniel is chairman, chief executive officer, and chief designer of Isaac Daniel, LLC, the Miami Florida-based company that is turning the footwear industry on its head with a line of eye-catching, high-tech shoes. The shoes feature a Global Positioning System using Quantum Satellite Technology^™ (or QST as Daniel calls it) that helps monitor the location of the wearer.

How did Daniel come up with the idea of putting a tracking device in a shoe? Another personal, family matter steered him in that direction.

In 2002, Daniel learned that his seven-year-old son had gone missing while waiting in line to take a school bus. He had run to the bathroom without informing his teachers, who, when they realized he was gone, thought the worst may have happened. They called Daniel – on a business trip in New York – to let him know what was going on. Daniel immediately jumped on a flight to Atlanta, but before he even arrived his son had returned.

While he was obviously relieved that his son was safe, that brief scare got Daniel thinking. How could he use technology to identify the exact location of a missing person? His patented Quantum Satellite Technology^™ arose from this dilemma. “I saw my mother and father helping people, so I have a passion to help,” says Daniel, who realized early on that he probably wasn’t going to fulfill his dream of becoming the first black astronaut.

“These shoes have nearly unlimited potential to help a wide range of people.”

Such a tracking device can trace the wearer anywhere in the world; Imagine its benefit to the military, Daniel points out. Or to police trying to find kidnap victims? (Daniel says this is a definite deterrent to kidnapping.) Or to patients with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias who are constantly getting lost? The technology in the shoe works in two different ways, according to Daniel.

The person wearing the shoe (someone lost or perhaps abducted) can push a button that activates the QST, or a loved one/friend of the wearer can contact ID Conex – another Daniel company – that provides the monitoring services. In the second scenario, once a police report has been filed, ID Conex interacts with the police to provide the location of the missing person. The entire process is immediate and takes place in real time.

The possibilities are endless, as it seems is the shoe line, which will be ready by Spring 2007. The first production run of the sure-to-be-popular shoes, limited to 1,000 and known as The Compass Global 1,000^™ Inventor’s Limited Edition, are available on-line only (www.IsaacDaniel.com). This gives the new shoe line an air of exclusivity. These first shoes might eventually become collectors’ items. The Spring 2007 preview will include select retail outlets nationwide.

The cost of a pair of Isaac Daniel Collection shoes was originally $325 and up per pair, but Daniel is hoping to use his technological expertise to bring down the cost substantially. There is also a monthly monitoring fee, ranging between $19.95 and $39.95 for the GPS/QST models.

According to Daniel, the shoes are in a “sleep” mode until activated. And while this keeps the shoes charged for up to six weeks, he suggests charging them every day. They come with a USB port, of course.

What’s next for the imaginative Daniel, who friends and associates describe as a kind, generous, giving man? Not one to rest on his laurels, Daniel has a clothing line for couples, called, WEME Clothing, in the offing. But even with his success, Daniel remains a modest, down-to-earth individual. “I am just a hard-working guy,” he says with his trademark smile, “who likes to help people.”

From FMI Magazine – January 2007 issue