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NEW YORK—Beginning with speakers representing technological leaders such as Intel and the Consumers Electronic Association and concluding with a surprise guest well known both in the optical community as well as the business world at large, (click here for an interview with Warby Parker’s Neil Blumenthal) the Vision Monday Global Leadership Summit held Wednesday, March 18, again delivered on its renowned tradition of presenting a full day packed with information that will drive the business of vision now and for years to come.

With the theme of Connectivity: The Future of EveryThing and EveryOne, the 9th Annual Vision Monday Global Leadership Summit addressed the Internet of Things and other trends affecting the optical industry. The much-anticipated event attracted 400+ executives from the ECP, retail, insurance, product and lab arenas to The Times Center in Manhattan.


Jobson's Marc Ferrara.

Supported by Premium Sponsors, Essilor, Adlens, and Luxottica, Signature Sponsor VSP, and Supporting Sponsors Alcon, CareCredit, International Vision Expo, and DAC Vision, the VM Summit got underway with Jobson’s Marc Ferrara. “Ninety percent of business going forward will be driven by what we talk about here today,” he said.

“Technology’s impact is hard to deny,” said VM’s Marge Axelrad, introducing the speakers and explaining that it’s “important to build a relationship with technology.”

The Internet of Things
Kicking off the Summit, the first session of the day focused on The Internet of Things (IoT): Understanding the Next Wave of Connectivity, and featured several experts from outside the optical industry. Intel’s Michael Bell said that in today’s IoT landscape everything is connected and eventually all devices will interact with each other. He predicted that by 2020 some 200 billion users would be connected via devices. “Eyewear is the next big wearable platform and Intel is working closely with Luxottica. Headworn technology is not just a gimmick and we are investing heavily in that area,” he said.

Consumer Electronics Association’s Brian Markwalter took attendees through a brief history of technological advances beginning with the first computer in 1942. “We are constantly digitizing our space, from baby monitors to watches that transmit data and cars that self park. The question is not what to digitize next but what is the best use scenario.”

Future Point of View’s Andrew Ranson looked at how big business has embraced technology and said the wrong approach “Can take down big companies” a trend he referred to as “Digital Darwinism.” He went on to give concrete examples of how companies should prepare people for technological change.

Retail (R)Evolution


David Kepron, Experience Studio,
Little talked about the Retail (R)Evolution.

Next up came a session on “Retail (R)Evolution” and how store design affects the customer experience. David Kepron, creative director of the brand experience of the international architecture and design firm Little, gave attendees a quick lesson in the science of the human brain before explaining how the retail experience, the good and the bad, shapes consumer decisions. “The rise of social media has disengaged us continuously from in-bodied experience which we should all be very concerned about. On the other hand, social media allows us to project our own emotions to a much broader audience.

“We don’t have these close knit social groups anymore. What we do is build a multi-dimensional, digitally connected, cognitive network. So the retail world is no longer this two-dimensional landscape. Get out of this mind set of thinking about this as omni-channel and think about it as omni-experience in a biosphere,” he said.

“It’s not about the ‘thing’ it’s about the relationship. So where is the ‘experience?’ Experience isn’t out there. It’s within us. It is in the way that man reacts to the conditions of his environment. In the end it’s not what people carry home in their shopping bags that’s most important but what they carry home in their hearts and in their minds that drives the relationship,” Kepron concluded.

Eye2: Wearables and Implantables
VM’s Andrew Karp introduced a dynamic Eye2 session on wearable and implantable technology featuring four speakers. Jerry Legerton, OD, of Innovega provided an overview of eyewear wearables before seguing into a discussion of smart, sensor-enabled contact lenses. “This is an exciting new area that represents the confluence of vision care and the consumer electronics industry,” Legerton said.

In a similar vein, Michael McAlpine, PhD, associate professor at Princeton University, described how his research team learned how to combine 3D printing with 3D scanning to create a unique contact lens that incorporates LEDs. Using this “bio-augmentation” technique, the Princeton researchers also created a prosthetic ear.

Stephen Prawer, PhD, professor at the University of Melbourne, discussed the development by Bionic Eye of Australia of an implantable device that is restoring sight to people with end-stage macular degeneration. “The device stimulates the inner retina by bypassing the damaged photoreceptors,” he noted. He added that the goal for the device is to “restore functional vision so people can navigate and recognize large type.”

Another dimension of vision was presented by Ashish Ahuja of Meta, a company that is a fast-rising star in the field of augmented reality (AR) eyewear. “Our technology allows us to stitch together images over the visual field,” he said. After presenting a video that demonstrated how Meta glass wearers can see, create and interact with virtual objects, Ahuja said that Meta wants to “lead the next evolution of AR, replacing smartphones and tablets with a more natural-to-use system set entirely in a pair of glasses.”

The afternoon got underway with a session on “How Smart Technologies are Reshaping the Patient Experience” moderated by Review of Optometry’s Paul Karpecki, OD. Futurist Michael Rogers started the session, stating, “The virtual world is where more and more of our business will take place,” he said. Yaopeng Zhou, CEO of Smart Vision Labs, followed with a presentation of the smartphone-based autorefractor he invented.

A Changing Retail Landscape


The retail panel included (l to r) FPOV’s Andrew Ranson; Edward Beiner, the Edward Beiner Group; New Look
Eyewear’s Antoine Amiel; and Michael Devlyn, Devlyn Optical Group.

The fifth session, “Cultivating Customer Loyalty in a Changing Retail Landscape,” brought three key decision makers to the stage: Michael Devlyn, EVP retail, Devlyn Optical Group; Antoine Amiel, vice chairman of the board of New Look Eyewear Inc.; and Edward Beiner, president of the Edward Beiner Group. Each senior manager discussed their strategies for developing customer relationships and utilizing technologies to strengthen business-to-consumer bonds.

Devlyn pinpointed his group’s growth strategy with a visual representation of a consumer pyramid. From the top, high end markets to the mass market consumer base, each level of customers is connected to on a different level, seeing specifically tailored store environments and brands.

Similarly, Amiel discussed New Look Optical Group’s three independent store networks, each of which addresses different customers both in-store and through individual marketing and media efforts. “We operate each retail network independently so they each retain their own flavor," Amiel said.

For Beiner, employee development plays a major role in the group’s growth and ability to adapt to new technologies. “We spend a considerable amount of time on programs for professional and personal development,” Beiner said.

The sessions concluded with the editor of Inc. Magazine and Inc.com, James Ledbetter, discussing disruptive innovations. He said that disrupters “are going to change the world whether the world wants to change or not.”

In keeping with this theme of surprise and disruption, Neil Blumenthal, co-founder of Warby Parker, then arrived for an interview. For more on the interview, see Warby Parker Co-Founder Appears in Surprise One-on-One Interview at VM Summit. To see a slideshow of presenters and attendees, click here.