Curing Blindness in the Developing World

1. Curing Blindness in the Developing World

2. The Team Aidan Lynch User Interface Eoin O' Brien Level Design Ros McMahon User Input Maria O' Connor Modeller Daniel O'Byrne Mentor

4. The Need • 45 Million people Blind Worldwide • 50% due to cataracts www.who.int

5. What is a Cataract? • A clouding of the natural lens, the part of the eye responsible for focusing light and producing clear, sharp images. • This may be removed in under than 10 minutes, restoring sight

6. Right To Sight

7. UN Millennium Goals Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger

8. UN Millennium Goals Achieve Universal Primary Education

9. UN Millennium Goals Reduce Child Mortality

10. UN Millennium Goals Improve Maternal Health

11. UN Millennium Goals Combat Diseases

12. UN Millennium Goals Develop a Global Partnership for Development

13. Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems facing us today

14. How We Can Help

15. How We Can Help • Working closely with eye surgeons and Right to Sight • Broke cataracts operation into a small number of discrete steps • Developed an affordable training simulator that can be deployed anywhere in the world

16. Current Solution • The EYESi is the only simulator currently available • Still in the development stage • Costs between $100,000 and $200,000

17. Our Solution • Built Using Microsoft Software • Run on any Microsoft Windows Computer • Using Motion Sensitive Controllers and Infra-red LED’s

18. Our Solution Windows Computer: €315 x2 Motion Sensitive Controllers: €60 Rechargeable Battery: €16 x4 Infra-red LED’s: €6 _____________________________________ Total Price: €397 www.amazon.co.uk

19. Demo

20. Sounds great Does it work? • Studies have shown that the number of complications for an eye surgeon decreases exponentially over the first hundred procedures. • Simulator training greatly shortens this learning period and allows surgeons to learn in a measured and controlled environment

21. Sounds great Does it work?

22. Online Community and such...

23. Impact • Reduce amount of direct supervision needed during the training progress • Enable students to compare experiences and consult surgeons online • Resulting in a far greater number of students being trained • Enable trained surgeons to keep their skills sharp • Help restore sight to millions of people

24. Technology • Motion Sensitive Controller • Bluetooth • Infrared LED / Camera

25. Technology

26. Technology

27. Innovation • Tackling a serious, real world problem in a unique way • Adapting existing technology to be used in new, imaginative ways • Provided an affordable solution to a long standing global problem facing millions of people

28. To Date • We now have all the major surgical steps modeled in our simulator, along with some general hand-eye coordination levels. • A scoring system that monitors the key aspects of the students performance. • The ability to adjust the difficulty level of the different tasks. • An online system that allows students and surgeons to share results and discuss their progress.

29. Extendibility • Not Just Cataract Surgery... • The technique we have used is not limited to medical applications and could be used in any hand-eye coordination training. Vitreo-Retinal Glaucoma surgery Corneal surgery Strabismus surgery Oculoplastics

30. Extendibility

31. The Plan • Introduce Support for the Gametrack Freedom • Extend to Xbox 360 • Fine-tune and trial with surgeons and students in the RCSI • Regionalise and bring to market worldwide

32. Team • As a team we have been greatly inspired by the potential impact of our training simulator. • We are building an online community to support our student colleagues in Africa. • And very much looking forward to taking this to Cairo next week.

33. To Recap • 37 million blind worldwide. • 1 Cataract surgeon per million. • 50-75% of preventable blindness in Africa due to cataracts. • Our simulator offers the chance to really speed up the training of new surgeons.

34. Questions