13-year-old Mallory Kievman from Manchester, Connecticut will soon be leading a team of MBA students from the University of Connecticut as she launches her inventive product for stopping hiccups: Hiccupops. Mallory’s lollipops, which she developed in her kitchen, are made with apple cider vinegar and sugar. She told the New York Times:

It triggers a set of nerves in your throat and mouth that are responsible for the hiccup reflex arc. It basically over-stimulates those nerves and cancels out the message to hiccup.

Hiccupops won prizes for innovation and patentability at the Connecticut Invention Convention, an annual competition for kids, where a patent was filed on Mallory’s behalf. She has also presented the product at a state economic summit and networking group Xcellr8 Innovation Cell.

This summer, the University of Connecticut’s Innovation Accelerator will be sending Mallory a group of graduate business students to help launch Hiccupops nationwide. She hopes her product will soon be found in school nurses’ offices and drugstores across the country.

Hiccupops

Photo by Alex Brown