In this column, I interview co-founders of recently formed start-ups that have come out of the University of Waterloo. With the presence of programs such as Velocity Science, Garage and Foundry, as well as other organizations in KW such as Communitech and the Accelerator Centre, the opportunities available for entrepreneurs to implement their ideas are boundless. In this issue I interview Ashutosh Syal, who started EyeCheck along with co-founder Daxal Desai in 2014. EyeCheck develops cheap and portable solutions for the diagnosis of vision impairments, to be implemented in developing countries.
Ashutosh Syal (a.k.a Ashu) meets me at the SLC, and we decide to conduct the interview on the main floor in M3, as this seems to be the quietest spot in the vicinity. Ashu informs me that Daxal is unable to make it since he is currently in India carrying out field tests in addition to getting a general feel of the way things work there. Through our conversation, I recognize the enthusiasm that Ashu maintains when talking about his company and the motivation behind their technology, as well as his sincerity when it comes to achieving EyeCheck’s goal of fast and inexpensive vision impairment diagnoses.
EyeCheck started out as an idea for a Fourth Year Design Project in 2013, when Ashu and Daxal were in their third year of Systems Design Engineering. Through collaborations with the School of Optometry, the team was able to design a proof of concept system that could detect patterns in reflected light corresponding to visual deficits in artificial eyes. The push to form a start-up came on the day of their design symposium. Ashu elaborates, “Mike Kirkup [Director at Velocity] came by and asked us if we had thought of applying to Velocity. Daxal and I hadn’t at the time, but decided to look into it. We applied, and the rest is history. Since then we’ve expanded to include Communitech and GreenHouse as our mentors, and things have started to move much more quickly”.
Their motivation to build an affordable system to detect vision problems is inspiring: “While researching for our project, we were seeing numbers like a quarter of children not being able to see the chalkboard in their classroom, and decided we needed to do something to close this gap. We also wanted to solve what is essentially a preventable problem; many cases of blindness can be solved with vision correction.”
Initially, the plan was to make EyeCheck a non-profit rather than incorporate and monetize their product. However, after interacting with their peers and mentors, they realized the non-profit route was quite difficult a path to follow. “We did some research and found that our customers don’t really care whether we’re a non-profit or not, as long as we have transparency built into our pricing. In addition, there’s a social impact benefit when we compete as a commercial company against others.”
EyeCheck’s technology consists of two parts. The first is a smartphone application-based triage tool used to quickly filter out people with cases of visual impairment from a large group. This helps to increase throughput and allows resources to be focused better. The second step involves using a stand-alone camera to capture information about a patient’s eye in order to give them a prescription. In this step, infra-red light is used instead of visible light to detect vision defects. “When you shine infra-red light into your eye, your pupil stays nice and big, allowing it to pass right through, and we can see the patterns clearly”, explains Ashu.
Currently, EyeCheck is in contact with several organizations in India that are helping them deploy their technology in certain areas in the state of West Bengal. “The reason we chose India is that there are logistical starting points we can springboard off of, including mature distribution channels for optometry care in rural areas. However this is definitely a global problem, for which we are currently developing a global strategy.”
Ashu describes his experience as a part of the Velocity Foundry: “It’s great to have people from companies that have tackled the problems we are currently facing, provide us with inspiration, mentorship as well as criticism. Focused criticism is especially important.” Last fall, EyeCheck participated in the Velocity Fund Finals competition, and walked away with the top prize of $25k as well as an additional $10k for being the top hardware team. “Winning the competition was overwhelming, but it was also a signal for us to get to work and continue what was expected of us.”
The presence of organizations like Communitech and St. Paul’s GreenHouse have resulted in the formation of a vibrant community of entrepreneurs in KW. While each of these organizations have different contributions to offer, they have collectively sped up the pace of idea formation and the translation of ideas into reality.
EyeCheck’s dream of creating a cheap and quick means of diagnosing vision impairment seems very close to becoming a reality, and it is hoped that in the coming years they will be able to expand their technology to a global level.
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