“…there have been other challenges, strongly related to the lack of understanding of poor vision’s impact on people’s broader socioeconomic outcomes…”

At DOT Glasses, we are absolutely clear that getting people to “good enough vision” creates tremendous value for the individual, the family, and the community. It’s what drives our whole model. It’s time to try a new approach, as continuing with the “same old solutions” simply can’t address the scope of the problem.

https://www.devex.com/news/a-bolder-vision-for-eye-care-93570

The IAPB (The International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness) is organizing its annual “World Sight Day 2018” on October 11, 2018. We’re happy to play our part! The IAPB’s 2018 ambition: Eye Care Everywhere. It’s a perfect fit with the DOT Glasses mission.

The IAPB quotes: “We know now that 1.2 billion people don’t have access to glasses. Over 3 out of 4–>75%–of the world’s vision impaired are avoidably so.“

A great read! And it explains beautifully why this is such an important topic, for such a vast number of people. The NYT really knows how to make the problem truly tangible.  “…thousands of nearsighted Nigerian truck drivers who strain to see pedestrians darting across the road and middle-aged coffee farmers in Bolivia whose inability to see objects up close makes it hard to spot ripe beans for harvest.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/05/health/glasses-developing-world-global-health.html

There is an apocalyptic gap in childhood development between rural and urban China. Hoping to rectify this imbalance, economist Scott Rozelle of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, is heading experimental interventions – including one focused on vision.

“At 200 schools, they checked each child’s vision and gave them a math test. Then, in half the schools, the kids who needed them got free glasses. A year later, the math scores of the kids with glasses had improved far more than those of peers in the other schools.” We love it. This is what we want to do for millions.

A young lady reads with her newly fitted glasses. She wants to go to university, and these glasses give her the chance to be a successful student and create a bright future.

Joao, one of the participants in our Angola pilot, enjoys being able to read for the first time in years. Before DOT Glasses, he couldn’t afford to purchase much-needed glasses.

Joao’s story is a touching one. He was blinded in one eye after stepping on a landmine – a remnant of Angola’s violent past. The glasses give him a new life.

DOT Glasses successfully carried out its first field test in the Angolan province of Huambo this summer! Many participants turned up to take part in our trial – all of them with their own stories about how poor vision negatively impacted their lives. Not only was it the first time we tested our glasses “live”, but we also tested our proprietary vision testing and pupil distance measuring tools – all part of our complete vision kit. Much was learned, lives were changed, and we are totally psyched! We’re ready to take on the world!

After working for nearly a year with various industrial designers, the cooperation with MBtech (a subsidiary of Mercedes Benz) starts to look very promising. We FINALLY see a design that can work!