There are 39 million people in the world who are blind. Eighty percent of them are living in low-income countries such as Kenya, and the absolute majority do not need to be blind. They are blind from diseases that are either completely curable or preventable.
Na svijetu je 39 milijuna ljudi koji su slijepi. Njih osamdeset posto živi u zemljama niskih prihoda poput Kenije, i apsolutna većina ne treba biti slijepa. Oni su oslijepili uslijed bolesti koje su u potpunosti izlječive ili se mogu spriječiti.
Knowing this, with my young family, we moved to Kenya. We secured equipment, funds, vehicles, we trained a team, we set up a hundred clinics throughout the Great Rift Valley to try and understand a single question: why are people going blind, and what can we do?
Znajući ovo, sa svojom mladom obitelji, preselili smo se u Keniju. Osigurali smo opremu, sredstva, vozila, obučili tim ljudi, osnovali smo stotinu klinika diljem Doline Velikog Rasjeda (Great Rift Valley) kako bismo odgovorili na pitanje: zašto ljudi gube vid, i što mi možemo učiniti?
The challenges were great. When we got to where we were going, we set up our high-tech equipment. Power was rarely available. We'd have to run our equipment from petrol power generators. And then something occurred to me: There has to be an easier way, because it's the patients who are the most in need of access to eye care who are the least likely to get it.
Izazovi su bili veliki. Kada smo stigli do odredišta, postavili smo našu visoko-tehnološku opremu. Struja je bila rijetko dostupna. Naša oprema je radila pomoću generatora na benzin. I tada sam se nečeg sjetio: mora postojati lakši način, jer su pacijenti oni kojima je najpotrebniji pristup njezi očiju, a koji je najvjerojatnije neće dobiti.
More people in Kenya, and in sub-Saharan Africa, have access to a mobile phone than they do clean running water. So we said, could we harness the power of mobile technology to deliver eye care in a new way? And so we developed Peek, a smartphone [system] that enables community healthcare workers and empowers them to deliver eye care everywhere. We set about replacing traditional hospital equipment, which is bulky, expensive and fragile, with smartphone apps and hardware that make it possible to test anyone in any language and of any age. Here we have a demonstration of a three-month-old having their vision accurately tested using an app and an eye tracker.
Više ljudi u Keniji i subsaharskoj Africi ima pristup mobilnom telefonu nego što ih ima čistoj, pitkoj vodi. Zapitali smo se, možemo li iskoristiti snagu mobilne tehnologije kako bismo omogućili njegu očiju na novi način? I tako smo razvili Peek, [sustav] za pametne telefone koji omogućuje zdravstvenim radnicima u zajednici pružanje njege očiju bilo gdje. Započeli smo sa zamjenom tradicionalne bolničke opreme, koja je glomazna, skupa i lako lomljiva, sa aplikacijama za pametne telefone i hardwareom koji omogućuju testiranje svakoga na bilo kojem jeziku, bilo koje dobi. Ovdje imamo primjer testiranja vida tromjesečnog djeteta vrlo precizno koristeći aplikaciju i očni lokator.
We've got many trials going on in the community and in schools, and through the lessons that we've learned in the field, we've realized it's extremely important to share the data in non-medical jargon so that people understand what we're examining and what that means to them. So here, for example, we use our sight sim application, once your vision has been measured, to show carers and teachers what the visual world is like for that person, so they can empathize with them and help them.
Provode se mnoga testiranja u zajednicama i školama, i kroz lekcije koje smo naučili na terenu shvatili smo da je veoma važno podijeliti podatke na ne-medicinskom žargonu kako bi ljudi mogli razumjeti što ispitujemo i što to znači za njih. Ovdje, na primjer, koristimo aplikaciju za simulaciju vida, odredimo kakav je vid, kako bismo pokazali njegovateljima i učiteljima, kako ta osoba vidi svijet, da bi oni mogli suosjećati i pomoći joj.
Once we've discovered somebody has low vision, the next big challenge is to work out why, and to be able to do that, we need to have access to the inside of the eye. Traditionally, this requires expensive equipment to examine an area called the retina. The retina is the single part of the eye that has huge amounts of information about the body and its health. We've developed 3D-printed, low-cost hardware that comes in at less than five dollars to produce, which can then be clipped onto a smartphone and makes it possible to get views of the back of the eye of a very high quality. And the beauty is, anybody can do it. In our trials on over two and half thousand people, the smartphone with the add-on clip is comparable to a camera that is hugely more expensive and hugely more difficult to transport.
Jednom kad identificiramo da netko ima slabi vid, sljedeći veliki izazov jest otkriti zašto, a da bismo to mogli, potreban nam je pristup unutrašnjosti oka. Obično to zahtjeva skupu opremu kako bi se pregledao dio koji se zove mrežnjača. Mrežnjača je dio oka koji sadrži brojne informacije o tijelu i njegovom zdravlju. Razvili smo 3D isprintani, jeftini hardware čija proizvodnja košta manje od 5 dolara, i može se pričvrstiti na pametni telefon te omogućuje pogled u pozadinu oka vrlo visoke rezolucije. A najljepše od svega je što svatko to može učiniti. U našim istraživanjima s više od dvije i pol tisuće ljudi, pametni telefon s dodatkom može se usporediti s kamerom koja je mnogo skuplja i puno teža za transportiranje.
When we first moved to Kenya, we went with 150,000 dollars of equipment, a team of 15 people, and that was what was needed to deliver health care. Now, all that's needed is a single person on a bike with a smartphone. And it costs just 500 dollars. The issue of power supply is overcome by harnessing the power of solar. Our healthcare workers travel with a solar-powered rucksack which keeps the phone charged and backed up. Now we go to the patient rather than waiting for the patient never to come. We go to them in their homes and we give them the most comprehensive, high-tech, accurate examination, which can be delivered by anyone with minimal training. We can link global experts with people in the most rural, difficult-to-reach places that are beyond the end of the road, effectively putting those experts in their homes, allowing us to make diagnoses and make plans for treatment.
Kada smo se doselili u Keniju, stigli smo sa 150 000 dolara vrijedne opreme, s timom od 15 ljudi, i to je bilo potrebno kako bi se omogućila zdravstvena skrb. Sve što je sada potrebno jest jedna osoba na biciklu s pametnim telefonom. I to košta samo 500 dolara. Problem električne energije se rješava iskorištavanjem solarne energije. Naši zdravstveni radnici putuju s ruksacima na solarnu energiju koji osiguravaju da su baterije pune i sigurnosna kopija zaštićena. Sada mi idemo do pacijenta radije nego čekajući pacijentov eventualan dolazak. Ulazimo u njihove domove i dajemo im opsežne, visoko tehnološke i točne preglede, koje može napraviti bilo tko uz minimalnu obuku. Možemo povezati svjetske stručnjake s ljudima u najruralnijim, teško dostupnim mjestima koja se nalaze daleko od cesta, i uspješno ih dovodimo u njihove domove, što nam omogućuje uspostavljanje dijagnoze i planiranje lječenja.
Project managers, hospital directors, are able to search on our interface by any parameter they may be interested in. Here in Nakuru, where I've been living, we can search for people by whatever condition. Here are people who are blind from a curable condition cataract. Each red pin depicts somebody who is blind from a disease that is curable and treatable, and they're locatable. We can use bulk text messaging services to explain that we're coming to arrange a treatment.
Voditelji projekata i bolnica mogu pretraživati naše sučelje prema bilo kojem parametru koji ih zanima. Ovdje u Nakuru, gdje živim, mogu se tražiti ljudi prema bilo kojem stanju. Ovdje se nalaze ljudi koji su slijepi zbog izlječive mrene na oku. Svaka crvena pribadača opisuje osobu koja je slijepa uslijed izlječive bolesti i može ih se locirati. Koristimo masovni SMS sustav za slanje poruka kako bismo objasnili da dolazimo dogovoriti liječenje.
What's more, we've learned that this is something that we haven't built just for the community but with the community. Those blue pins that drop represent elders, or local leaders, that are connected to those people who can ensure that we can find them and arrange treatment.
Štoviše, shvatili smo da je ovo nešto što smo uspostavili ne samo za zajednicu nego sa zajednicom. One plave pribadače predstavljaju starješine, ili lokalne vođe, koji su povezani s tim ljudima i pomažu nam da ih pronađemo i dogovorimo terapiju.
So for patients like Mama Wangari, who have been blind for over 10 years and never seen her grandchildren, for less than 40 dollars, we can restore her eyesight. This is something that has to happen. It's only in statistics that people go blind by the millions. The reality is everyone goes blind on their own. But now, they might just be a text message away from help.
Tako pacijenti poput Mame Wanagari, koji su slijepi već gotovo 10 godina i nikada nisu vidjeli svoje unuke, za manje od 40 dolara, možemo im vratiti vid. Ovo je nešto što se mora dogoditi. Samo statistički gledano milijuni tih ljudi postaje slijepo. Zapravo, sami postaju slijepi. Ali sada, možda su udaljeni samo jednom porukom od pomoći.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)
And now because live demos are always a bad idea, we're going to try a live demo.
Demonstracije uživo su uvijek loša ideja pa ćemo sada izvesti primjer uživo.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
So here we have the Peek Vision app. Okay, and what we're looking at here, this is Sam's optic nerve, which is a direct extension of her brain, so I'm actually looking at her brain as we look there. We can see all parts of the retina. It makes it possible to pick up diseases of the eye and of the body that would not be possible without access to the eye, and that clip-on device can be manufactured for just a few dollars, and people can be cured of blindness, and I think it says a lot about us as a human race if we've developed cures and we don't deliver them. But now we can.
Ovdje imamo Peek Vision aplikaciju. Ono u što gledamo sad, to je Samin optički živac, koji je direktna veza s njezinim mozgom, i sada, zapravo, gledam njezin mozak. Vidimo sve dijelove mrežnjače. Moguće je pronaći bolest oka ili dijelova tijela koje ne bi bilo moguće ustanoviti bez pristupa oku, a uređaj sa dodatkom može se proizvesti za samo nekoliko dolara, i ljude se može izlječiti od sljepoće. Smatram da to mnogo govori o nama kao ljudskoj rasi ako razvijemo lijek i ne dajemo ga bolesnima. Ali sada možemo.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)