11 Y/O Lily Born Invents Revolutionary Product To Help The Elderly

Remember what you were doing at age 11? There’s a good chance you weren’t inventing some revolutionary product that could potentially alter the everyday lives of elderly and diseased people.

However one Chicago girl is living proof that you can never write off youth and what they are capable of! 11 year old Lily Born was inspired to create the Kangaroo Cup, after observing her elderly grandfather who has Parkinson’s disease. She noticed that because his hands would constantly shake, he would often spill his cup of coffee and started drumming up ways to alleviate this.

Her idea was to make a cup out of plastic, that had legs so it wouldn’t easily be knocked over, and was stackable.

With the help of her dad Joe, Lily and her father launched a Kickstarter campaign in November 2012 to fund the creation of the Kangaroo Cup prototype. Their first campaign was to raise $6,000 to make ceramic cups, and they were successful. Also, Lily was only 9 at that time. Wowzers!

After receiving feedback from various customers, and breaking a few of the ceramic versions of the Kangaroo Cup themselves, Lily and her dad, as well as the team of helpers they gathered along the way decided to re-design the popular cup and make a BPA-free plastic version. Once again, they created a Kickstarter campaign only this time because their product is already well-known, they are off to a flying start financially.

They were looking to raise $25,000 and after only a few days, they raised over $32,000!

“Just because you’re a kid doesn’t mean you can’t do big and great things,” Lily says in her campaign video below. And she’s absolutely right. She’s not the only prodigious young girl we’ve highlighted on GTHQ.

Teen girl Eesha Kare from California created a device which can charge cell phone batteries in 20 seconds, which also earned her a runner-up place at the 2013 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Our initial thoughts were “how has this not been invented already?” and “where can be get this charger!”

Examples like Eesha and Lily are continual reminders that age should not be a barrier to being a world-changer.

Lily didn’t just change the day-to-day life of her granddad, but is now inspiring many other girls to use their intelligence to make their mark on the world, rather than their physical appearance like we have been taught for far too long by the media.

The 9oz Kangaroo Cup is both dishwasher and microwave safe, and is getting attention from press all over the world. If you don’t believe us, just google it!

Clearly the campaign has already raised above what they initially intended to, so it’s only a matter of time before we see the Kangaroo Cup in every store.

Gotta give props to Lily’s dad who seems to have had a big hand in encouraging his young daughter’s dreams and ambitions. Keep it up Joe, we hope more dads out there copy your example with their daughters!