Silver Lining: Inventor, Founder Creates Urgent Solution and Fulfills Her Dream
Zeynep Ekemen created a company and a product that can address COVID-19 solutions.
Lori Greiner, the highly successful investor on ABC-TV’s “Shark Tank,” can surely offer tips and perhaps also learn lessons from Zeynep Ekemen, the creator of Silver Defender, a stretchable film that protects any and all surfaces from germs and viruses.
“@Z_ekemen created Silver Defender, a stretchable film that protects any and all surfaces from germs and viruses. #COVID19 #safety #femaleinventors”
Ekemen, or “Z”, as everyone calls her, was at her early morning “Breakfast Club” with business friends in a local Fort Lee, New Jersey coffee shop in 2018, when one of her friends returned from the men’s room grossed out by what he saw.
“@Z_ekemen created a company and a product that can address #COVID19 solutions. #womenintech #womeninnovators”
“Someone has to do something about those door handles, they are disgusting,” Ekemen recalls. “I said, oh my, this is my invention. I started doing research and came across the antimicrobial properties of silver that have been known for centuries.”
With two patents pending—one domestically and another internationally— Ekemen says Silver Defender can be stretched across any surface and has 99.9 percent effectiveness due to the silver ions embedded in the plastic. Silver Defender is the only product of its kind to have initiated EPA pesticide registration.
Launched in December 2019, Ekemen says, “The company went from zero to 100 overnight” when COVID-19 hit. The product is American made, with the film produced in Wisconsin, with a fulfillment center in Tennessee.
“March 25 was our first sale and we are in in Canada, Brazil, China, France, all over the world, but no market share is higher than in the U.S.,” says Ekemen.
Silver Defender is on the door handles at the World Trade Center, on buses, trains, the Staten Island Ferry, the San Diego Zoo, and public buildings across the globe. The chemical-free product lasts 90 days, and though it is plastic, it can be recycled, she says. “It works out to pennies a day,” she says.
“Silver Defender, created by @Z_ekemen, is on the door handles at the World Trade Center, on buses, trains, the Staten Island Ferry, the San Diego Zoo, and public buildings across the globe. #COVID19 #womenentrepreneurs”
“I go to the World Trade Center and see my product on every door, I can’t even explain that feeling,” Ekemen says.
Born in Turkey, and moving to this country with her family when she was eight, Ekemen was passionate about photography. In high school she was the yearbook editor and newspaper editor dreaming of becoming a photographer for National Geographic.
“I realized doing that was like winning the lottery so let me do something with a more realistic approach,” Ekemen says.
Read more in Take The Lead on inventors
So she switched to study accounting in college and earned her undergraduate and MBA degrees in 2006 in a special five-year program at Pace University in New York. Hired as an accountant before she even graduated, she says she didn’t enjoy accounting and went to work in 2007 in commercial real estate.
Working for other firms until she earned her broker’s license, Ekemen launched her own commercial realty firm in 2009, Z Realty Group.
As a woman in the male-dominated commercial real estate field, Ekemen says the real estate conferences were a 9 to 1 ratio of men to women. Even when she had founded her own firm, men would always ask, “Who do you work for?”
“As a woman in the male-dominated commercial real estate field, @Z_ekemen says that even when she had founded her own firm, men would always ask, “Who do you work for?” #womeninbusiness #sexism”
“I hated that,” she says. “I won the co-star Booker Award twice in New Jersey and in both years, of 10 companies each, I was the only woman-owned company.”
All the while she was working in real estate, she dreamed of inventing something.
“I wanted something to be mine. I had been watching ‘Shark Tank,’ for years and I would always say, I could have thought of that,” she says. “I would get mad at myself and say, why couldn’t I think of something?”
Then the 2018 breakfast meeting happened with the dirty bathroom door handles and the rest is innovation history.
Read more in Take The Lead on women inventors
According to USA Today, “In 2018, only 10 percent of U.S. patent holders were women, although women account for half of doctoral degrees in science and engineering. This disparity is due in part to the the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office being more likely to reject patents with women as sole applicants.”
Many are not even aware of the inventions women have been responsible for for the last century and more. A Mighty Girl reports, “Around the world and across history, innovative women have imagined, developed, tested, and perfected their creations, and yet most of us would be hard pressed to name even a single woman inventor. In fact, women inventors are behind many of the products and technologies used every day!
“Many are not aware of the inventions women have been responsible for for the last century and more. #womeninventors #womeninnovators #womenshistory”
According to A Mighty Girl, “From life rafts to disposable diapers to rocket fuel, women have invented amazing things — but they're also responsible for some of the things we use for day to day life. In fact, if you use GPS on your cell phone, turn on windshield wipers when you drive in the rain, or eat a chocolate chip cookie, you can thank the woman behind them.”
Read more in Take The Lead on women inventors through history
Having expanded greatly in the last few months because of a need for public safety during COVID-19, Ekemen says what initially began as B2B with government offices, schools, hospitals and large organizations as clients, has expanded to B2C for smaller officer and residential areas.
“Obviously no one is happy about COVID-19,” Ekemen says, “but we are at the right place and the right time and can reduce the transmission.”
The impact her invention has on the world is safety for every person every day. “Imagine you leave your house, drop off your child at day care, then go to work, and back to home, Silver Defender is on all those doors, so you are not bringing germs back home.”
“The impact @Z_ekemen ‘s invention has on the world is safety for every person every day. #COVID19 #womenentrepreneurs”
And while the number of female inventors is growing, there will not be gender parity among inventors until 2070, the BBC reports.
“The proportion of women inventors has doubled in the past 20 years, according to the IPO, from just 6.8% in 1998 to 12.7% in 2017. During the same period, the proportion of applications naming at least one woman among the inventors rose from 12% to 21%,” the BBC reports.
Ekemen is used to being one of a few women in professional settings, from accounting to commercial real estate to invention. And while she has been a lifelong fan of Greiner and “Shark Tank,” and many people advise her to go on the show, she says she doesn’t need to pitch her product.
“We don’t need any financing or investments,” Ekemen says. “I just want to sit next to Lori as a shark. But I have just two patents, Lori has 120.”
As for her advice to anyone who dreams big about inventing or creating a product that provides a solution, she advises, “Do not give up, keep dreaming. You may create the product that somebody will see and say, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’”
“For #femaleinventors, @Z_ekemen advises, “Do not give up, keep dreaming. You may create the product that somebody will see and say, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’” #femaleentrepreneur”
