In the interior of Kenya, a boy riding his bicycle from village to village. In the backpack, he carries an incredibly effective tool. A technology that has taken the dark (literally) hundreds of elderly people suffering from degenerative diseases in view.
In these confines where traditional medicine does not think it is worth getting, some of the young is about 39 million blind or have severe vision problems worldwide, of which 80% in regions with low purchasing power, as the people within this African country. Most of these people have lost their vision due to illnesses that could be cured and prevented from simple eye exams. But, when it comes, for example, elderly women in remote areas of Kenya, the use of sophisticated ophthalmic equipment costing $ 25,000 is out of the question.
But the tool inside the backpack, the result of restlessness of a young English ophthalmologist based in Nakuru, a town of 300 000 inhabitants in Kenya, is a better translation than the combination between a good idea and technology mobile is able to do. The motivation of Andrew Bastawrous, an ophthalmologist, was:. “How do exams cheap looking and yet efficient, helping people without resources”
And so he developed the Peek (Portable Eyes Examination Kit) , one coupled to a dirt-cheap smartphone capable of doing virtually the same thing that the expensive hardware equipment, but at a cost 50 times less, and with the advantage of being mobile and connected. The entire structure costs less than $ 500:. Simply a smartphone with the equipment and its application, operated by a minimally trained health workers, provided a bicycle to move between villages
Nicknamed “eye phone” , this particular smartphone is able to scan the retina of patients and, thanks to a satellite internet connection, send the medical examination. The battery of the phone has solar power, adapted to the knapsack plates. From there, doctors organize “caravans” to fetch the patients at once and get them to surgery, healing problems such as cataracts.
Andrew Bastawrous and other young people around the world are TED Fellows , entrepreneurs and innovators identified by making a difference in the communities they serve, always leading to the common good. TED (in Portuguese: Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a private nonprofit foundation that operates worldwide and is dedicated to spreading good ideas that can contribute to a better world
This week’s. Rio de Janeiro is hosting the TED Global 2014 . It is the first time the event happens south of the equator. For four days, “talking heads” of South America and other parts of the globe are sharing their good stories and particularly good solutions to make the world a better place. Andrew Bastawrous is one that is telling your experience there. “No use to develop cures for diseases if we can not deliver it to those in need,” he argues. Now we can. A job for a standing ovation.
[by Mariela Castro]
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