design for good :: kangaroo cups

This month I’m sharing some of my favourite posts of 2014 and I loved the story of 11 year old Lily, who invented a cup that you can’t knock over…

I am always inspired by young designers, but they’re not often quite as young as Lily Born. Lily’s grandfather has Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative condition that, among other symptoms, affects control over muscle movement. Aged just 11, Lily noticed her granddad spilling his drinks and, being the daughter of an inventor, she decided to design a more stable cup for him. The Kangaroo cup was born.

Originally made of ceramic and funded via Kickstarter, achieving 113{ff546b69e23b1524d799f96c6ba7a638e1f677053b0a2a1568b05315fd5f8fc7} of its $6,000 target, the Kangaroo cup has recently undergone a redesign, and is now made from BPA-free plastic to prevent it from breaking, and is finding its way into settings from children’s high chairs to picnic blankets. The second iteration was also funded via Kickstarter, this time raising 248{ff546b69e23b1524d799f96c6ba7a638e1f677053b0a2a1568b05315fd5f8fc7} of its target.

This is a story involving a small person with a big idea, a small team of people who believed in her enough to help her make it happen, and a whole gang of people who believed in them all enough to back them using the power of crowd-funding, not once but twice. What inspiring times we live in!

Further reading for the especially geeky:

• design for good :: the bradley timepiece
• design for good :: wheelchairs of hope
• design for good :: braigo
• design for good :: patient dignity