Lily Born is the 16-year-old creator of “Imagiroo”: the invention that helped Born’s grandfather who had Parkinson’s Disease. This young entrepreneur identified a pressing problem throughout the elderly community at a very young age by observing how easy it is for people like her grandfather to spill their drinks.
The love for her grandfather and the problem at hand drove Born to be even more observant. She began to draw inspiration from the objects around her. In doing so, she learned to reinvent the concept of the cup so that it had three legs attached to it. The modification would improve the stability of the cup when it was placed on the table, which was a massive benefit to people who physically shake like Born’s grandfather. She called her invention “The Kangaroo Cup”, and even saw its use when it came to her father, who almost spilled his cup of coffee on his laptop.
Even at a young age, Born has inspired me to identify even the most common problems that everyone faces, and how one can use inspiration from other objects in life to “mash together” and create a working product. (In Born’s case, this would be a mash-up between a mug and a stool). Though the new cup looks a bit crazy, the innovation in itself was incredibly simple, and Born showed how one can produce a prototype with very limited supplies, like how she did with her project in a ceramics studio.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://www.imagiroo.com/about
It is really interesting to see how such a young girl impacted an older generation of people. Having a family problem at a young age can be hard enough, but creating something positive from that experience is something incredible. The innovation this young girl had used to help a personal problem she had passion for is something people should learn from and is what makes entrepreneurs so amazing.