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  • There are 39 million people in the world

  • who are blind.

  • Eighty percent of them

  • are living in low-income countries such as Kenya,

  • and the absolute majority

  • do not need to be blind.

  • They are blind from diseases

  • that are either completely curable or preventable.

  • Knowing this, with my young family,

  • we moved to Kenya.

  • We secured equipment,

  • funds, vehicles, we trained a team,

  • we set up a hundred clinics throughout

  • the Great Rift Valley

  • to try and understand a single question:

  • why are people going blind,

  • and what can we do?

  • The challenges were great.

  • When we got to where we were going,

  • we set up our high-tech equipment.

  • Power was rarely available.

  • We'd have to run our equipment

  • from petrol power generators.

  • And then something occurred to me:

  • There has to be an easier way,

  • because it's the patients who are the most in need

  • of access to eye care

  • who are the least likely to get it.

  • More people in Kenya,

  • and in sub-Saharan Africa,

  • have access to a mobile phone

  • than they do clean running water.

  • So we said, could we harness

  • the power of mobile technology

  • to deliver eye care in a new way?

  • And so we developed Peek,

  • a smartphone [system] that enables

  • community healthcare workers

  • and empowers them to deliver eye care everywhere.

  • We set about replacing traditional hospital equipment,

  • which is bulky, expensive and fragile,

  • with smartphone apps and hardware

  • that make it possible to test anyone

  • in any language and of any age.

  • Here we have a demonstration

  • of a three-month-old having their vision

  • accurately tested using an app and an eye tracker.

  • We've got many trials going on

  • in the community and in schools,

  • and through the lessons that we've learned in the field,

  • we've realized it's extremely important

  • to share the data in non-medical jargon

  • so that people understand

  • what we're examining and what that means to them.

  • So here, for example,

  • we use our sight sim application,

  • once your vision has been measured,

  • to show carers and teachers

  • what the visual world is like for that person,

  • so they can empathize with them and help them.

  • Once we've discovered somebody has low vision,

  • the next big challenge is to work out why,

  • and to be able to do that,

  • we need to have access to the inside of the eye.

  • Traditionally, this requires expensive equipment

  • to examine an area called the retina.

  • The retina is the single part of the eye that has

  • huge amounts of information about the body

  • and its health.

  • We've developed 3D-printed,

  • low-cost hardware

  • that comes in at less than five dollars to produce,

  • which can then be clipped onto a smartphone

  • and makes it possible to get views

  • of the back of the eye

  • of a very high quality.

  • And the beauty is, anybody can do it.

  • In our trials on over two and half thousand people,

  • the smartphone with the add-on clip

  • is comparable to a camera

  • that is hugely more expensive

  • and hugely more difficult to transport.

  • When we first moved to Kenya,

  • we went with 150,000 dollars of equipment,

  • a team of 15 people,

  • and that was what was needed to deliver health care.

  • Now, all that's needed

  • is a single person

  • on a bike with a smartphone.

  • And it costs just 500 dollars.

  • The issue of power supply

  • is overcome by harnessing the power of solar.

  • Our healthcare workers travel

  • with a solar-powered rucksack

  • which keeps the phone charged and backed up.

  • Now we go to the patient

  • rather than waiting for the patient never to come.

  • We go to them in their homes

  • and we give them the most comprehensive,

  • high-tech, accurate examination,

  • which can be delivered by anyone with minimal training.

  • We can link global experts

  • with people in the most rural,

  • difficult-to-reach places

  • that are beyond the end of the road,

  • effectively putting those experts in their homes,

  • allowing us to make diagnoses

  • and make plans for treatment.

  • Project managers, hospital directors,

  • are able to search on our interface

  • by any parameter they may be interested in.

  • Here in Nakuru, where I've been living,

  • we can search for people

  • by whatever condition.

  • Here are people who are blind

  • from a curable condition cataract.

  • Each red pin depicts somebody

  • who is blind from a disease that is curable

  • and treatable, and they're locatable.

  • We can use bulk text messaging services

  • to explain that we're coming to arrange a treatment.

  • What's more, we've learned that this is something

  • that we haven't built just for the community

  • but with the community.

  • Those blue pins that drop represent

  • elders, or local leaders,

  • that are connected to those people

  • who can ensure that we can find them

  • and arrange treatment.

  • So for patients like Mama Wangari,

  • who have been blind for over 10 years

  • and never seen her grandchildren,

  • for less than 40 dollars, we can restore her eyesight.

  • This is something that has to happen.

  • It's only in statistics

  • that people go blind by the millions.

  • The reality is everyone goes blind on their own.

  • But now, they might just be

  • a text message away from help.

  • (Applause)

  • And now because live demos are always a bad idea,

  • we're going to try a live demo.

  • (Laughter)

  • So here we have the Peek Vision app.

  • Okay, and what we're looking at here,

  • this is Sam's optic nerve,

  • which is a direct extension of her brain,

  • so I'm actually looking at her brain as we look there.

  • We can see all parts of the retina.

  • It makes it possible to pick up diseases

  • of the eye and of the body

  • that would not be possible without access to the eye,

  • and that clip-on device can be manufactured

  • for just a few dollars,

  • and people can be cured of blindness,

  • and I think it says a lot about us as a human race

  • if we've developed cures and we don't deliver them.

  • But now we can.

  • Thank you.

  • (Applause)

There are 39 million people in the world

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