Photo by: cabinetforum
On an episode of “The Colbert Report” not too long ago, the host sported a pair of glasses that looked like something only Harry Potter would envy—thick, round and rather clunky.
But they weren’t designed to be fashionable; their purpose is much higher: to improve vision in the developing world.
The glasses, which were featured in a segment on “humanitarian design,” come equipped with removable oil-filled syringes. Their lenses comprise two flexible plastic membranes and the amount of oil between the membranes, which the wearer controls, determines the vision correction. It takes the user very little time to literally dial-in the correct prescription (Stephen Colbert did it in a matter of seconds).
The inventor of the glasses – called “AdSpecs” (for “adjustable spectacles”) – is Oxford University professor Josh Silver, for whom alleviating vision problems in developing nations is his life’s work. The organization he directs, the non-profit Centre for Vision in the Developing World, is distributing AdSpecs to alleviate vision problems that affect an estimated one billion people who lack access to both eye care and corrective eyewear. About 30,000 pairs of AdSpecs are now in use in some 15 countries.
It is an incredibly worthy endeavor: The World Health Organization has pinpointed refractive error (improperly corrected vision) as the number-one cause of low vision in the world today, and the second greatest cause of preventable blindness after cataracts.
You can find out more by visiting the Centre’s website, by or following them on Facebook. You can watch AdSpecs inventor Josh Silver discussing the vision crisis in the developing world and demonstrating the glasses in a video below and visit this link to view the clip in which Stephen Colbert tries on and discusses the AdSpecs.
