NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Dr. Hong Sheng Chiong’s talk at TEDxAuckland last month was met with a standing ovation. Yet what he had to say is really just the beginning of an open-source journey to end preventable blindness globally; and it begins with a life-changing invention designed especially for those living in poverty.

There are 285 million people who are visually impaired; 39 million are legally blind, with 90% of them living in developing countries, of which 80% are suffering from preventable blindness. The young doctor’s exposure to third world medicine in Kenya, Nepal and Malaysia gave him insight into the burden of preventable blindness.