Santa Monica Teen Goes To Kickstarter To Fund His Novel Invention

SANTA MONICA (CBSLA.com)  — Mother might be the necessity of invention, but when it comes to this new device, it's more like "Look ma, no hands."

Santa Monica teen Benji Miller came up with a great new invention just by riding his bike. He created a speaker that one can mount on a bike -- for hands free talking while on the phone.

He's taken the idea to Kickstarter to raise the necessary capital -- namely $25,000 -- to get the invention off the ground.

The 17-year-old told KCAL9's Bobby Kaple "I'm a huge biker."

He rides to and from school every day.

So the idea for the invention wasn't exactly hard to come up with. He wanted to promote safer bike riding, including his own.

"I really had a lot of trouble using my phone while I was riding," he explains, "or I would have to fumble for it. Or wear ear buds, super unsafe and also illegal."

Miller saw other bikers had similar problems so he decided to do something about it. Invent something to allow him to use his phone hands free.

His device allows the user to talk on the phone, listen to tunes, get directions -- all while keeping both hands on the handlebars.

He calls it the Allo Bike Mount.

"I'm really proud of him," Ron Miller says of his son, "He's learned about trademark issues, learned about production issues, and he's learned about raising money to even get the prototype built. He really got a pretty high-speed schooling in entrepreneurial start ups."

Benji says he dreams of riding his bike around Santa Monica someday and seeing lots of bikers using the Allo.