News, Technology — November 20, 2009 1:05 — View Comments
Do-It-Yourself Glasses Will Give Sight to 1 Billion by 2020
Photograph by Michael Lewis
If you haven’t yet heard of Global Vision 2020′s goal to distribute 1 billion wearer-adjusted glasses by 2020, you really need to. (READ ON!)
It all started with Josh Silver, Oxford professor and atomic physicist, who developed inexpensive, durable glasses with lenses that can be adjusted by the wearer. The “DIY” glasses, which took Silver’s team over a decade of work to perfect, allow wearers to adjust the glasses’ power without the help of an eye doctor.
Basically, the glasses are filled with sacs of liquid between the lenses; you adjust the amount of liquid with built-in syringes and remove the syringe when you achieve your best sight to seal the prescription. (The simple, but brilliant, idea is–the thicker the lenses, aka the more liquid, the higher the vision power.)
The glasses are, admittedly, rather clunky and unattractive in appearance. But the whole objective behind the glasses is to give sight to those who couldn’t afford eyeglasses or eye exams otherwise.
This is about as cool as it gets . . . combining giving at its best and an awesome new technology, a similar form of which we’ve previously discussed here. Silver and his team’s goal is to distribute the glasses to 1 billion of the poorest people worldwide by 2020. All they need is continued funding. (For the official site, click here: *hint, hint.)
BTW: I am in no way associated with Global Vision 2020. I simply found out about this news and felt it was an inspiring message to share and support!
Related posts:
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http://www.justeyewear.com/blog/technology/helping-the-world-see/ Bespeckled – Helping the World See
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DICK HYATT