Over a billion people suffer educational, economic, and quality of life losses due to uncorrected refractive error—a condition that can be treated for just a few dollars per person. This is the challenge PlenOptika is dedicated to meeting.
PlenOptika designs and produces tools to help vision professionals perform their best care anywhere. Vision professionals and NGOs have used PlenOptika technology on over 5 million patients in more than 45 countries to transform their lives with clear vision.
Pioneering technology
PlenOptika’s key insight was that the world would never have enough vision care professionals to meet the persistent and growing patient need. Our first product, the QuickSee handheld autorefractor, combined affordable optical components with innovative ML / AI technology to achieve clinical-quality accuracy at a fraction of the price of conventional equipment. The technology has been demonstrated in peer-reviewed publications, covering 20 IRB-based clinical studies and trials including >2100 patients in eight countries, to be so accurate that eyeglasses prescribed from QuickSee measurements are accepted by patients equally to those from the gold standard of traditional clinical practice. PlenOptika’s research and development strategy will expand on this foundation to produce even higher impact technology solutions.
PlenOptika collaborates closely with eyecare professionals and advocacy organizations to achieve widespread and sustainable impact. Business and clinical requirements for eyecare influence every aspect of our technology design and company strategy. We work with research and education institutions like the New England College of Optometry to understand the evolving demands of the profession, and with NGOs such as the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) to drive global policy innovation. PlenOptika also collaborates with the NASA / Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) research program in space flight biometrics.
PlenOptika’s dedication to innovation and impact has earned it recognition from a range of international organizations. QuickSee was selected for the 2019 Beazley Designs of the Year exhibition in London, was named a winner of the 2022 SPIE Prism Award, and nominated for Silmo D’Or in 2020 and 2023. We were recognized by the Essilor See Change Challenge for its potential to impact vision care globally, and by the Mass Innovation Network for our innovative business and technology strategy.
PlenOptika formed out of the Madrid–MIT M+Visión Consortium research fellowship program. As Fellows, the cofounders allied to meet the challenge of uncorrected vision—a top global health issue affecting more than a billion people and causing more than US$400 billion in economic loss. The company has strong research and development relationships with institutions and agencies around the world, including the Regional Government of Madrid (Spain), the Aravind Eye Hospital (India), the National Institutes of Health, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—where our technology was invented and the first prototypes were designed.
Photonics Center
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