James Chen.
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HONG KONG—James Chen, the Hong Kong-based philanthropist and investor, is launching a global campaign, “Clearly,” that aims to bring together innovators, scientists, technology firms and big business, with investors, governments and NGOs to tackle the problem of poor vision.

In a statement released Wednesday, Chen called poor vision “the number one unaddressed disability in the world today,” affecting 2.5 billion people.

“Despite human advancements on so many levels, we have forgotten about one of the most basic needs of all—sight. It is astounding that, 700 years after spectacles were invented, billions of people in the developing world still do not have access to something as simple as a pair of glasses,” said Chen.

“Good vision empowers and transforms lives on every level,” he observed. “In the digital era, the world has the ideas and the technology to crack this challenge and transform access to sight around the world. Through Clearly, I hope to inspire creative minds and unlock innovative solutions to solve this global problem, accelerating a revolution in eyecare and helping the world to see.”

According to the organizers of Clearly, the campaign will bring together “the best minds in the world, with leading businesses and the most cutting-edge, innovative technology to take on this challenge and rethink the approach to world vision.” They said the campaign will consist of an ideas competition for entrepreneurs, which asks technologists, supply chain experts, data scientists and forward thinkers to use their great minds and knowledge to come up with innovative solutions.

The prize offers $250,000 USD of seed funding and mentoring to get the best ideas off the ground; a series of “Clearly Labs” challenges in which innovators will come together for one-day events in India, China, Silicon Valley and other global markets, meeting with health leaders and optometrists, applying their expertise and ideas to help find new thinking, new ideas and new solutions; a unique, global event with a small group of “the world’s best and most creative brainpower” gathered in one place to develop “the big idea.”

Organizers of the Clearly campaign said it has garnered the support of a number of “champions,” including Agnes Binagwaho, minister of health, Rwanda; Neil Blumenthal, co-founder and co-CEO of eyewear brand Warby Parker, and former director of charity, VisionSpring; Brian Doolan, CEO of The Fred Hollows Foundation, focused on preventable blindness in developing countries; Dave Gilboa, co-founder and co-CEO of eyewear brand Warby Parker; and Sir David Tang, entrepreneur and founder of Shanghai Tang.

The Clearly campaign is an outgrowth of Project Oversight, an initiative launched by Chen on World Sight Day in 2015 and reported in VMail.

Additional information about Clearly, as well as a video about it, is available at www.clearly.world.