Marika Martena and a double act of Ishvinder Bahra and Charis Hedges have won the CooperVision Future Ocular Research Creativity Event (FORCE) final awards for 2020 and 2021 respectively. Martena’s project investigated the effectiveness of soft contact lenses indicated for accommodative support on the symptoms of eyestrain and on the visual functions of young adults. Bahra and Hedges’ project researched optimisation of blink exercises on the Blinkful app.
A spokesperson for FORCE said that the event was an annual competition run by CooperVision that pitches students from universities across Europe against eachother.
The final of the awards was hosted virtually by CooperVision’s EMEA professional services manager Fabio Carta, who said: ‘I am so happy to know that there are people across Europe who have the skills to drive our profession forward through the 21st Century.’
Judges at the event included Elena Rubio Garcia, director of Spain’s National Institute of Optometry; Dr Stefan Bandlitz, senior lecturer at Cologne’s School of Optometry; Pascale Dauthuile, president of France’s Association for Contact Lens Experts; and Professor James Wolffsohn, associate pro-vice chancellor at Aston University.