CHARENTON-LE-PONT, France—Essilor is launching the See Change Challenge, a competition to uncover what it described as “low-cost, easy-to-use and scalable solutions that can be used by primary vision care providers in underserved areas to accurately measure eye refractive errors.”

“Innovation has always been a cornerstone of our mission to improve lives by improving sight. Today, we are widening our field of exploration to ensure we meet the vision needs of the 7.2 billion people in the world,” said Hubert Sagnieres, chairman and chief executive officer at Essilor International. “We are excited to use the open innovation model to discover new solutions that have the potential to transform the lives and economic futures of low-income populations through improved access to vision care.”

Essilor is appealing to startups, universities, app developers, vision scientists, optometrists, engineers and all individuals and organizations with an interest to bring their multi-disciplinary expertise to develop innovative refraction solutions that can have profound implications for individuals as well as society.

Successful Challenge proposals may include pure software solutions, software solutions based on consumer devices such as smartphones, or pure hardware devices, Essilor said. These solutions would speed up the delivery of vision care in underserved regions by enabling more people to be easily trained to become primary eyecare workers.

The submission deadline for the See Change Challenge is Oct. 21, 2016. Up to five winners of the first phase of the Challenge will each earn 25,000 euros in cash, and will have the opportunity to enter the second phase of the Challenge, where there will be an additional amount of 100,000 euros in cash for up to two final winners. Essilor said it will also potentially support the final winners with development contracts to help them to build and scale up their solution.