Lily Born was 9 years old when she noticed something no one else seemed to see.
Her grandfather, who had Parkinson’s, could not hold a cup without his tremors making him spill coffee or water. Instead of looking the other way, the girl from Chicago came up with a solution: a plastic cup with three legs at the base, much more stable than any ordinary glass.
Her father, Joe Born, saw the prototype work and decided to support her in turning it into something bigger. Together, they launched a Kickstarter campaign that in 2016 raised more than 62,000 dollars, with nearly 1,800 people supporting the idea.
They even traveled to Jingdezhen, China, looking for a more elegant ceramic version, but the fragility of the material made them return to the durable plastic that had worked from the beginning.
That is how the Kangaroo Cup was born, with thousands of units already sold in different countries. Today, at 21, Lily runs Imagiroo, the company she founded out of love for her grandfather and which now gives autonomy back to people with Parkinson’s around the world.
