{"id":9760,"date":"2019-08-29T08:00:19","date_gmt":"2019-08-29T14:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ulprospector.com\/knowledge\/?p=9760"},"modified":"2022-05-31T14:21:58","modified_gmt":"2022-05-31T20:21:58","slug":"pe-making-a-charitable-vision-come-into-focus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ulprospector.ul.com\/9760\/pe-making-a-charitable-vision-come-into-focus\/","title":{"rendered":"Making a Charitable Vision Come into Focus

PolyOne\u2019s IQ Design & Global Vision 2020 partner to bring eyeglasses to the poor<\/em><\/h3>
"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo
PolyOne\u2019s IQ Design team assisted with the design, mold-filling analysis, and production of the injection-molded USee device, which includes a copolyester frame, medical-grade PC lenses, and acetal dials and gears. (All photos courtesy of PolyOne Corp.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kevin White has a vision. Literally. And he\u2019s decided to devote his life to helping others see it, as well. Today, he is founder and executive director of the nonprofit charity Global Vision 2020 (www.gv2020.org<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Together with materials supplier PolyOne Corp., injection molder\/toolmaker Alpha Tool & Mold, and other partners, his firm has devised a simple, effective way to bring clear eyesight to people living in extreme poverty. Since clinical trials began in 2016, this approach has delivered some 36,000 pairs of correct-strength glasses to such individuals in 36 countries. Each pair of glasses costs just $5, and White says that price should decrease to about $3 once all the logistical and distribution wrinkles get ironed out.<\/p>\n

The diagnostic device he invented, called USee\u2122, just this month won Gold in the Social Impact category of the 2019 International Design Excellence Awards organized by the Industrial Designers Society of America.<\/p>\n

USee\u2019s back story<\/h3>\n
\"Kevin
Marine veteran Kevin White leveraged his military service in Africa to found the nonprofit Global Vision 2020, to improve eyesight for the poor.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

White, a 1992 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, served 20 years in the Navy and Marine Corps. While working in Morocco in 2005 as program director for Humanitarian & Civic Assistance at the U.S. European Command, he witnessed first-hand the inefficiency of the medical system that was attempting to improve the vision of many patients who had very few resources. It stirred his passion to serve those less fortunate and to help them see better.<\/p>\n

After retiring from the service in 2009, he launched a new career devoted to finding a way to deliver eyeglasses to the poor. Initially, he toiled on this as a side project while working in operations management at a pair of consulting firms. His initial eyeglasses approach did not work out as planned. Then, in 2013, he came up with a new strategy to achieve his aim. In 2014, he quit his consulting job to found Global Vision 2020 and make it his priority.<\/p>\n

Following his new approach, White explained in a recent phone interview, he first asked a friend to cut some sample lenses using a CNC machine. Then, a friend\u2019s son converted his concept to a computer-aided design file. In his search to find someone who could 3D print a few samples, White contacted a friend who happened to work at Avon Lake, Ohio-based polymer supplier PolyOne. That person connected him to Cathy Dodd, PolyOne\u2019s vice president of marketing.<\/p>\n

Dodd facilitated an introduction to IQ Design, a St. Louis-based unit of PolyOne that is staffed with industrial designers and design engineers. Brian Everett is global director of IQ Design, and he and Dodd immediately saw the value in what White was trying to do. Everett and fellow IQ team members Jane Spikowski and John Church donated design time and expertise to help White realize his dream.<\/p>\n

The USee Vision Kit<\/h3>\n
\"Mozambique
This Mozambique girl is one of 36,000 so far to receive prescription eyeglasses, with the help of the USee Vision device.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The resulting USee Vision Kit is an innovative system that works through existing local organizations and infrastructure. The USee is a portable, self-refractive screening tool with variable curvature lenses. (Note: Self-refraction refers to the practice of having patients turn the USee dials themselves to adjust to their best possible vision.)<\/p>\n

The USee diagnostic device features a copolyester frame and a pair of rectangular, medical-grade polycarbonate lenses that move vertically in the USee\u2019s frame, the prescription changes when viewed through the slit. The lenses may appear flat, but they are actually curved and vary significantly in thickness from top to bottom.<\/p>\n

How the USee device works<\/h3>\n

Users simply rotate the USee\u2019s acetal dials and attached gears to slide the lenses up or down until they can see clearly. For the device to function properly, its lenses must glide smoothly across the entire prescription range when the dials are turned. They must not slip downward under their own weight or the prescription reading may be inaccurate.<\/p>\n

The dial tip aligns with a color-coded number, designating which eyeglass lenses to select from the kit and snap into the durable, lightweight frames\u2013\u2013a method that GV2020 calls \u201cDial-Snap-Wear.\u201d The entire process takes about 15 minutes.<\/p>\n

Getting volunteers involved<\/h3>\n
\"Eye
This user in Tanzania practices self-refraction, meaning he turns the dials on the device until he confirms the optimum vision setting for his new glasses.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

USee enables local volunteers to be trained as \u201crefractionists\u201d to assist patients. This simplicity enables larger-scale vision care by vastly expanding the number of individuals capable of identifying blurry vision and providing prescription eyeglasses.<\/p>\n

White said they wanted to simplify the process and avoid making the refraction assistants read decimal points and interpret the prescription strength. On the USee device, they used colors and numbers to represent each different prescription strengths, such as, e.g., \u201cRed- 2,\u201d which then corresponds to the similarly labeled eyeglass lenses in the kit.<\/p>\n

Once the prescription is determined, volunteers then make a pair of snap-together, correct-strength eyeglasses on site. They use off-the-shelf polycarbonate frames and PC lenses sourced from China. The USee device is packaged within a kit that contains these various strength, ISO-certified lenses and conventional eyeglass frames. The kits are distributed by local partner charities.<\/p>\n

What does the kit include?<\/h3>\n

The entire kit costs $1,500 and each includes: one USee screening device, in a hard case; two distance eye charts; one near eye chart; one tape measure; 250 snap-in frames; 250 pairs of reading glasses (of various powers); 540 snap-in lenses (of various powers) in a hard case; 500 micro-fiber bags to serve as glass cases; and one training manual. The kit is approximately the size of standard suitcase, White said.<\/p>\n

The benefits of injection molding<\/h3>\n

IQ Design notes that it chose injection molding as the manufacturing method due to its scalability and low cost. However, the large variation in thickness of USee\u2019s lenses is outside the typical recommended range for precision injection molded parts. The lenses have curved sections that are thinner in some areas and much thicker in others in order to create the correct optics.<\/p>\n

The project involved overcoming various challenges:<\/p>\n