How it started

This mission started back in 2015 when ophthalmologist Luke Anderson and optometrist and vision science researcher Stephanie Campbell were working together in a busy NHS hospital clinic in Cardiff, Wales. Both could see waiting lists growing and knew that half of eye clinic visits were made simply to monitor eye disease.

In theory, this monitoring could be done at home, and specialists could concentrate their time on those who were most in need. Stephanie and Luke also believed that vision testing could be both fun and automated using video games, and this would be especially useful in paediatrics. However, when building the first prototype, they realised that much more than just visual acuity (vision from a traditional eye chart) could be measured on a screen. This made it theoretically possible to measure and monitor vision across a wide variety of eye diseases - and in adults (luckily it turns out that adults enjoy playing simple games, too!)

OKKO Health worked with the University of Bristol to learn the science behind games and motivation, the importance of co-designing with patients and learning from them first. Passionate to learn how human-centred technology could be created for eye care, Stephanie completed a Creative Technology Fellowship to understand the principles of great automation and responsible data design.