Celebrating World Sight Day on Thursday, South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics announced plans to expand fundus diagnosis campaign using older Galaxy smartphones in India. The campaign will reach 150,000 people by 2023 through the Galaxy Upcycling program.
The Galaxy Upcycling program is a project started in 2017 to convert older Galaxy smartphones into IoT devices. A typical example is the EYELIKE Fundus Camera, a wearable device developed in cooperation with the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), Yonsei University Health System and LabSD.
According to the IAPB, approximately 1.1 billion people live with visual impairment. Ninety percent of vision impairment can be treated early or preventable, yet people living in medically underserved communities don’t even have access to eye health checkups.
To provide access to early diagnosis for people living in remote areas, Samsung Electronics began supplying digital medical devices to Vietnam in 2018 and expanded support to India, Morocco and Papua New Guinea l ‘last year. In India, 200 devices were used to diagnose 5,000 patients. “We will do our best to create a sustainable society using advanced technologies,” said Mohan Rao Goli, CTO of Samsung R&D Institute, Bangalore.
beepark@donga.com