Lee and her husband, who was getting his doctorate in computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, discovered their son’s condition was serious enough that they wouldn’t be able to go back to the life they had as game developers in South Korea. The family decided to stay in the U.S. Lee started toying with the idea of creating iPhone apps for children with special needs.
“Maybe I can develop something for my child to help him learn and help him explore the world,” Lee remembers thinking. But kids with autism sometimes have trouble with coordination and Lee found the iPhone screen was too small to support apps with which her son could interact. But when Apple launched the iPad with its bigger screen in April 2010, Lee and her husband saw an opening. They started a company, LocoMotive Labs, to develop a suite of iPad apps designed especially for children with autism. When he was about five, their son had been diagnosed with autism.