Essilor

Essilor Announces Open Innovation Challenge to Develop Scalable Solutions for Measuring Refractive Errors in Underserved Populations

Essilor, the world leader in ophthalmic optics, today launched the See Change Challenge to seek innovative solutions that can improve the lives of 2.5 billion people by facilitating access to vision care. Specifically, the See Change Challenge aims to uncover low-cost, easy-to-use and scalable solutions that can be used by primary vision care providers in underserved areas to accurately measure eye refractive errors.

« Innovation has always been a cornerstone of our mission to improve lives by improving sight. Today we are widening our field of exploration to ensure we meet the vision needs of the 7.2 billion people in the world » said Hubert Sagnières, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Essilor International. “We are excited to use the open innovation model to discover new solutions that have the potential to transform the lives and economic futures of low-income populations through improved access to vision care.”

Essilor is appealing to startups, universities, app developers, vision scientists, optometrists, engineers and all individuals and organisations with an interest to bring their multi-disciplinary expertise to develop innovative refraction solutions that can have profound implications for individuals as well as society. The successful Challenge proposals may include pure software solutions, software solutions based on consumer devices such as smartphones, or pure hardware devices. These solutions would speed up the delivery of vision care in underserved regions by enabling more people to be easily trained to become primary eye care workers.
Up to five winners of the first phase of the Challenge will each earn 25,000 € in cash, and will have the opportunity to enter the second phase of the Challenge, where there will be an additional amount of 100,000 € in cash for up to two final winners. Essilor will also potentially support the final winners with development contracts to help them to build and scale up their solution.

Of the 4.5 billion people who need vision correction, only 1.9 billion actually correct their eyesight. Over 2.5 billion people still live with uncorrected poor vision, and its social and economic consequences. 95% of them live in developing countries where they lack awareness of the impact of poor vision and access to basic vision care solutions. Essilor established two entities in 2013 to tackle the issue of uncorrected poor vision in developing countries through innovative inclusive business solutions. The Group has to date provided over 2 million low-income individuals, otherwise referred to as ‘base of the pyramid’ (BoP) consumers, with locally affordable eyeglasses.

The BoP Innovation Lab, supported by the Singapore Economic Development Board, incubates inclusive business models and forms strategic partnerships across the public, private and non-profit sectors to accelerate access to vision care for the underserved. Essilor’s 2.5 New Vision Generation (2.5 NVG) drives inclusive business initiatives across 20+ developing countries, with a strong focus on training micro-entrepreneurs to provide access to vision care within their local communities.

The See Change Challenge is a perfect illustration of Essilor’s commitment to constantly push the boundaries of innovation in order to provide better solutions for all consumers’ vision needs, whatever their geography or income. A pioneer with 170 years of history in ophthalmic optics, Essilor is at the origin of major advances in its sector and has ranked among Forbes’ 100 Most Innovative Companies for the past five years. Solution providers can learn more about this opportunity to facilitate primary vision care by going to the Essilor See Change Challenge site where they will find entry requirements, evaluation criteria, and the link to a proposal template. The submission deadline is October 21, 2016.

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