What We Do

Eyeglasses Key
to Italian Renaissance
From The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor by David S. Landes

"...the invention of spectacles more than doubled the working life of skilled craftsmen, especially those who did fine jobs: scribes... and readers, instrument and toolmakers, clothes weavers, metalworkers.

The problem is biological: because the crystalline lens of the human eye hardens around the age of forty, it produces a condition similar to farsightedness (actually presbyopia.) The eye can no longer focus on close objects. But around the age of forty, a medieval craftsman could reasonably expect to live and work another twenty years, the best years of his working life... if he could see well enough. Eyeglasses solved the problem."

Adaptive Eyewear aims to make widely available low cost spectacles on a large scale. We work with local partners to establish distribution mechanisms.

Adaptive Eyewear is interested in both humanitarian and commercially-based distribution approaches.

To-date, adaptive eyeglasses have been in the field:

  • Helping adults see clearly as they learn to read
  • Sold in non-prescription pharmacies
  • Deployed as humanitarian donations
  • Trialed with diverse populations on worldwide

Adaptive Eyewear looks forward to building partnerships and making vision correction available the world over.