The article discusses various approaches to tackle serving the 500 to 100 million people who require vision correction and are not receiving it. Given the various approaches, the reasons why success on a large scale has not yet been achieved is discussed.
Website – Centre for Vision in the Developing World
Key takeaways:
-
In the challenge of making eyeglasses available to bottom of the pyramid market there has been a disconnect between the offering and the market. Of the poor people who may be able to afford to pay, for many value of eyeglasses (and how this affects a country’s economy, education and safety) is not apparent. And of course, for many the cost is simply too high. Solutions include increasing demand, lowering the costs, or some combination thereof.
-
Even the business models that strive to hit breakeven rely on grants and subsidies for an initial period while sales ramp up and economies of scale are reached.