Get Your Next Eye Exam on a Smartphone

Get Your Next Eye Exam on a Smartphone?

Thirty-nine million people in the world are blind, and the majority lost their sight due to curable and preventable diseases. But how do you test and treat people who live in remote areas, where expensive, bulky eye equipment is hard to come by? TED Fellow Andrew Bastawrous demos a smartphone app and cheap hardware that might help.

Andrew Bastawrous’s Research

1. The Nakuru Eye Disease Cohort Study. A follow-up study of 5,000 participants in the Rift Valley of Kenya to assess for the first time in an African setting, the incidence and progression of the major eye diseases.

2. The validation of adapted smartphone technology to identify, diagnose and map blindness and visual impairment in the Rift Valley, Kenya. Participants of the Nakuru Eye Disease Cohort Study will form the validation arm for the mobile phone data.