On September 16th, VisionSpring and its Board of Directors will host a conversation with Fareed Zakaria, TIME Magazine’s Editor-at-Large and host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS.

Following an informal breakfast, Time Warner CEO, Jeff Bewkes will offer opening remarks and provide framework to the program, “Business Solutions for the Base of the Pyramid.” Dr. Zakaria will discuss the lack of effective products and services to address social problems in the developing world and explore new solutions to meet the pressing needs of the poor. He and VisionSpring Founder & CEO, Dr. Jordan Kassalow, will examine the unique aspects of social business and its impact at the Base of the Pyramid.

In addition to his work with Newsweek International and CNN, Fareed Zakaria is a New York Times bestselling author. He was described by Esquire Magazine as “the most influential foreign policy adviser of his generation” and in 2007, Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines named him one of the 100 leading public intellectuals in the world.

This event is by invitation only.

To inquire about the event, please contact Kelly R. Ricculli at kricculli@visionspring.org

VisionSpring India partner, Villgro Fellow 2010, Jeanne Chen argued in a recent blog post that a gender gap exists in the adoption of technologies at the base of they pyramid. She suggested that according to her observations, VisionSpring’s customers are skewed in favor of men because women lack disposable income and find glasses aesthetically unappealing.

VisionSpring is grateful to our important partner, Villgro for working on our behalf and ensuring women and men adopt our products equally. It is through such partnerships that we continue to improve our operating model and spread our impact. We welcome the questions like those raised by Jeanne Chen so that we can continue to innovate both our products and services to better serve consumers at the Base of the Pyramid.

In her post, Chen asserts that social enterprises need to be conscientious of the gender gap in innovation adoption and evaluate the impact of their interventions to overcome this gap – we agree. VisionSpring trains our Vision Entrepreneurs to conduct screenings and provide eye care solutions to all genders. According to our sales records in India last year, VisionSpring customers were roughly 52% male and 48% female – only slightly in favor of men. Despite this statistic, Chen raises two critical issues for VisionSpring to consider.

First, Chen argues that women are less likely to wear glasses because they consider eyeglasses aesthetically unappealing. To address this, she recommends including women in the sourcing of glasses. As a market-driven organization, VisionSpring recognizes the importance of understanding the needs and desires of all intended users of our products, including women. We have learned that by listening to the consumer we have a higher adoption and usage rate of the product. For this reason, VisionSpring utilizes our Visions Entrepreneurs to gather feedback regarding frame styles and selection and the sales of our products reinforce what works for our customers. VisionSpring local staff collect this information and use it to make sourcing decisions. For example, VisionSpring created protector glasses, which are sunglasses with clear, UV protected lens, specifically to address the cultural preferences of some women to avoid shading their eyes. Though we are not perfect, like other consumer businesses, VisionSpring does its best to accommodate the widely varied tastes of our customers.

Second, Chen notes that women are less likely to have disposable income and economic means to purchase glasses. As she recommends, our Vision Entrepreneurs emphasize to customers the importance of preserving vision for economic productivity. Part of the challenge of selling this product is demonstrating to customers that purchasing reading glasses is an important investment for economic wellbeing of the family unit. One of our primary goals is to increase awareness about vision loss in the developing world and a large part of our outreach is done through vision campaigns in which our Vision Entrepreneurs not only screen vision loss, but also educate the general population about how restoring their vision can restore their productivity.

One customer in rural India, Shadna had been supporting her family for years after her husband died. As her vision deteriorated, she was unable to continue her work as a seamstress and had to labor in the fields earning too little to support her family. She tells VisionSpring, “I heard that a Vision Entrepreneur would be in my town, and even though I did not have money to spare, I went because the vision screening was free. I saw that the glasses they had were good quality, and I decided that they were worth the cost. I am back to my sewing now and making the same money as before. I am happy that I once again have a way to support my children.”

Stories like Shadna’s reinforce the power of awareness of our services and of vision care to women and men in the community. We thank Jeanne Chen and Villgro for holding us accountable to ensuring women are able to adopt the important technologies they need. We look forward to strengthening our collaboration on behalf of all consumers at the Base of the Pyramid.

VisionSpring was highlighted on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric last night!

The CBS Evening News team traveled to Rajasthan to learn the moving story of Ranju Sharma, whose work as a Vision Entrepreneur was so well respected that she was the first woman ever nominated to run for village chief.

Watch our powerful three minute CBS Evening News segment, “Eyesight for Sore Eyes”!

In this short video, a VisionSpring customer in Nicaragua tells the inspiring story of how his friend became a Vision Entrepreneur and helped save his livelihood.

Dionicio Torrez-Hernandez, father of seven, was forced to use a handheld magnifying glass to inspect his shrimp harvest due to his blurry up-close vision. Then Lisseth, a young woman he knew since childhood, sold him a pair of low cost reading glasses that immediately doubled his productivity. Thanks to VisionSpring’s innovative model for providing affordable eye care, Dionicio and Lisseth are both able to support their children and save for the future of their families.

We would like to extend a special thanks to Willy Foote, President and Founder of Root Capital, for the production and composition of original music for this video. Join us in watching the inspiring story of Dionicio and Lisseth!

VisionSpring: Dionicio & Lisseth’s Story from elizabeth kaplan on Vimeo.

Learn more about Dionicio and Lisseth and read other inspiring Stories from the Field.

VisionSpring 3.0 incorporates an urban optical shop that sells affordable distance glasses into its existing mode as a “hub” for VisionSpring’s “spokes “, i.e. our market-creating Vision Entrepreneurs working in rural regions. Latin-America Partner Manager, Caroline Misan, recently returned from the pilot of this new model and brought two short videos shot during one of the successful Vision Campaigns in Sant Ana.

Country Director, Heidy Serpas (seen in the videos) works with customers to select their frames. With a great understanding of what styles are popular in the region, Heidy’s expertise has resulted in highly positive response to our frame selection. During the first four campaigns, VisionSpring sold more than 140 pairs of prescription lenses.

Watch as customers choose among the selection of frames in consultation with Heidy and their families:

VisionSpring is lucky to have four MBA students from the Ross School of Business MAP program assessing the pilot of our new business model in El Salvador. The MBAs arrived in Santa Ana, El Salvador last week. During their time with us, VisionSpring will post the impressions of our four students on Business in a Bag. In the first post, Stephanie Osborn reports on the patience Vision Entrepreneurs exhibit cultivating customers in regions where eye care has never before been accessible.

We have had the opportunity to observe several campaigns, the community gatherings where the Vision Entrepreneurs perform eye exams and sell reading glasses. Whether there are eight people from the community present or fifty, I have been struck by the level of individual attention that the VEs give each customer. People come from all over the area surrounding Santa Ana, seeking not only an eye exam but some sort of explanation about what exactly is happening in their eyes. They want to know why their vision is cansada, or tired, and why they need this specific type of glasses. People come looking for answers.

The VEs never seem to lose their patience or rush a customer. They make sure that each person gets his or her questions answered. During one campaign, a VE named Noel explained to an elderly woman why she needed to take better care of her eyes so that she could continue to live a full life and not go blind. The woman began to cry. Noel immediately began to comfort her, sitting down on the bench beside her. He kept speaking with us until she calmed down and understood that he was trying to help her. I was impressed with how he listened to the elderly woman and answered her questions; this sort of attention and care is very different from the clinical and fast-paced medical experience in the United States.

This is not to say, however, that the eye exams performed at the campaigns are any less thorough than those in the U.S. People leave the VisionSpring campaigns with glasses or a referral to an optometrist in the Santa Ana office. The customers seem very happy with their new frames and renewed vision. I continually notice that the VEs do not only give out glasses, but answers as well; the personal attention given to each customer is incredibly important because it makes the VEs part of the communities that they serve. There are perhaps more answers to be found in this process than simply those that the VEs offer their patients.

-Stephanie Osborn

The Fraserview Boys and Girls Club of Greater Vancouver recently selected VisionSpring as its inspiration for the production of a claymation video. The video, made by a group of elementary-school students, highlights VisionSpring’s work promoting self-reliance and economic productivity using the story of a guide dog struggling with blurry vision.

VisionSpring in Claymation from elizabeth kaplan on Vimeo.

We couldn’t be more excited to see this animated interpretation of our work! A sincere thanks to these creative young people!

About The Fraserview Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Vancouver

Founded in 1936 and incorporated as a charitable organization in 1938, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Vancouver (BGCGV) provides a wide range of social, health, educational and recreational services to assist young people in their growth and development. Summer camp, low-cost recreational programs, alcohol and drug abuse counselling, after-school drop in programs and parent support are just a few of the programs provided on seasonal and daily basis to over 6,000 youth and families by core staff and over 1,200 volunteers.

To learn more about BGCGV

In the February 14, 2010 edition of Parade Magazine, VisionSpring Founder and CEO, Dr. Jordan Kassalow recounts what sparked his ‘eureka’ moment, where he discovered the enormous need for vision care at the base of the pyramid. Dr. Kassalow also sat down with Entrepreneur Magazine (March, 2010) to discuss how the organization grew from an idea to a global enterprise that operates in eleven countries with a corps of more than five thousand entrepreneurs.

The following is an excerpt from Dr. Kassalow’s interview in Parade:

Why did you start VisionSpring?
When I was an optometry student, I volunteered in Mexico and met a 7-year-old boy at a school for the blind. All he needed was the right glasses. When I put them on him, his face changed from a blank stare into this incredible, animated, beautiful smile. It changed his life—and mine.

How does the program work?
So many people in underprivileged areas lose their livelihoods as they age because they can’t afford the glasses they need to see their work. At the same time, millions of women need a way to support themselves. We decided to train women to start small businesses selling glasses to their neighbors at a price they can afford. We began with 18 women and currently have more than 5000 selling glasses from Ghana to El Salvador.

To take VisionSpring and the growing corps of Vision Entrepreneurs to the next level, the organization needed to develop a scalable and replicable model. In “The Vision Thing,”Jason Daley of Entrepreneur Magazine describes the solution – VisionSpring’s innovative microfranchisie model, which lies at the heart of VisionSpring’s global impact:

“Microfranchising works essentially like any franchise system. A locally based franchise partner—usually a local NGO or corporation with a strong local presence, signs up “vision entrepreneurs,” 95 percent of whom are women, who receive a “business in a bag” including glasses, eye charts and three days of training. They then travel from village to village marketing and selling the reading glasses for what typically amounts to 10 percent of a month’s salary. It’s a win-win-win situation—the franchisors put back whatever revenues they get from consignment sales to fund more entrepreneurs; the sellers create a viable livelihood; and workers in remote villages have access to glasses that might not reach them otherwise.”

Check out the full articles to hear more insights from VisionSpring’s founder:

Parade Magazine
Entrepreneur Magazine

Vogue recently featured a new line of socially-conscious specs by Warby Parker, “a line of boutique vintage-inspired frames and lenses for savvy urbanites at a revolutionary (read: low) price point.”
The idea for the line came from Wharton School of Business student Andy Hunt, who was frustrated after repeatedly losing his frames and being forced to pay a bundle for frames he didn’t care for. Hunt collaborated with three other entrepreneurs (classmates at Wharton) to make the line a reality. One of the four founders is former VisionSpring Director, Neil Blumenthal.

Genevieve Bahrenburg of Vogue writes:

“The founders didn’t enter into the eyewear business blindly. Blumenthal had spent the previous five years with the non-profit foundation VisionSpring, which provided low-cost eyeglasses in developing countries and won him the distinction of developing the first line of reading glasses for populations living on less than $4 a day. Relying on Blumenthal’s insight, the founders discovered they could dramatically lower prices by cutting out cost-inflating middlemen like optical shops and licensing companies and selling the glasses exclusively online, where you can upload your photo and virtually try on different pairs before committing to a style. As a result, all Warby Parker eyeglasses, which include anti-reflective prescription lenses, are available for less than $100, and better yet, these frames have a social conscience.”

For every pair purchased, Warby Parker will donate a pair to the world’s “500 million visually impaired, impoverished people.”

Plus, since the line is available exclusively online, the “virtual try-on” feature of the website is a fun and easy way to test out your look before committing to a frame. Why not give it a try on the aptly named monocle, the Colonel?

We at VisionSpring love Warby Parker’s look and the attention given to the millions of people in the developing world without access to vision care. Thanks to Blumenthal’s innovative business insight, socially-conscious urbanites and fashion-conscious social entrepreneurs and the like can step out in (affordable) style.

To read the full article on Vogue.com.

Check out Warby Parker here!

Peter Eliassen, Vice President of Sales and Operations, discusses the challenges VisionSpring faced working with BRAC in 2009 and the pay-offs for the organization moving forward .

In October 2008, two months after I joined VisionSpring, I went to BRAC’s offices in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The eyeglass pilot we launched with BRAC’s network of Shasto Shebikas had proven successful, and this visit’s purpose was to discuss future expansion.

Immediately upon sitting down to speak with the Chief Procurement Officer, a key player in senior management, I was told “VisionSpring cannot deliver. I do not believe that you can provide products to us on time without the hassle that has arisen in previous orders.”

Gulp. A jumble of thoughts ran through my head: we just recently hired a logistics expert in Shanghai to help us manage the finer details of an extremely thorough Letter of Credit importation process, we were planning on upgrading suppliers, is it hot in here? I hoped he would break into a smile with “just kidding, you guys are great”. Nope, didn’t happen. I expressed my confidence in our abilities to deliver, and promised that the next few orders would be smooth and on-time.

In the first few months of a job, a moment like this can really help you prioritize. In this case, our biggest partner, the one who could take us to a new level of scale, doubted VisionSpring’s ability to execute on our orders.

Over the following months, we made serious investments of both time and financial resources:

1) hiring a logistics manager to help with order execution and factory liaison work
2) visiting and upgrading to two new suppliers who had the capacity to produce at our projected levels for BRAC and other partners
3) reducing costs (thus speeding up the path to sustainability) by changing to shipment by sea
4) placing a priority on understanding and executing the Line of Credit importation process
5) setting clear quality and lead-time expectations with our manufacturers to ensure that we could exceed the expectations of our biggest partner

On December 10th a shipment of 112,000 pairs of reading glasses will land in Bangladesh, kicking off our expansion from 4 to 15 of BRAC’s operating districts in the next 4 months. I am proud to say the order was delivered in less than 90 days. By the end of 2010, we will expand to 30 districts, at which point monthly sales will require a nearly quarterly inventory infusion. We will be ready.

The supply side is only the tip of the iceberg. Our focus in the next few years of expansion is to ensure that BRAC’s 80,000 rural health workers feel sufficiently trained and have the correct inventory to provide screenings and reading glasses to those in need. Improving the Vision Entrepreneur experience will require frequent analysis of our sales metrics and a continuous feedback loop.

As VisionSpring’s partnership with BRAC continues to expand – both wider to new districts and deeper within existing districts – we plan to utilize this analysis and feedback to introduce new products, services, and marketing strategies in rural Bangladeshi markets. In being the best partner possible to BRAC, we are accumulating invaluable operational learnings for VisionSpring’s whole global network of partners.

Turns out a challenge from BRAC is a pretty great welcome gift.