Eye care for all thanks to smartphone technology

You may have heard Andrew Bastawrous, ophthalmologist and co-founder of Peek, giving an inspirational Ted talk (www.ted.com). He describes his frustration at the lack of access to adequate eye care for an estimated 2.5 billion people around the world meaning that millions suffer sight loss which might easily have been prevented or treated.

During a study visit to Kenya, Bastawrous was struck not only by the inaccessibility of deprived areas and lack of underlying infrastructure, but also by the preponderance of mobile phones which seem to have near universal distribution nowadays. And so the idea of developing smartphone eye care was born.