OSAAT

The challenge

80% of classroom learning is visual, yet hundreds of millions of children cannot see the board. Three barriers block care at once: little awareness of eye health in families and schools, limited access — over 90% of children with uncorrected refractive error live in developing economies — and poor adoption, where stigma stops children wearing the glasses they need. Conventional screening depends on specialists and bulky equipment that never reach those classrooms.

Product strategy

Move screening to where children already are and put it in the hands of non-specialists. The programme combines service delivery, advocacy, health promotion and partnerships, and the technology had to match: an affordable, scalable, school-based workflow that a trained technician or teacher can run without clinical equipment, while still producing data credible enough for optometrists, governments, researchers and donors.

User experience

An eight-step journey from classroom to clear vision, designed for low-connectivity field conditions. A school is onboarded through partners, each eye is tested separately with a calibrated tumbling-E test on Android, an accurate visual acuity score appears instantly on-device, children below threshold are referred for refraction and examination, spectacles are prescribed and delivered back to the child at school, and every record syncs to the cloud for reporting. Large targets, minimal text and clear pass/refer states keep the interface usable by non-specialists at speed.

Technology solution

A native Android screening application with on-device visual acuity scoring and full offline capability, paired with a secure cloud backend for screening records, visual acuity data, referrals, prescription history and programme outcomes — plus a web registration portal and reporting layer for optometrists, partners, governments and donors.

Outcome

OSaaT publicly reports over 200,000 children screened, 16,000+ spectacles delivered, active programmes in 4 countries and 98% screening accuracy — with the platform built to scale toward the millions of children still to reach.

Key capabilities

• Tumbling-E visual acuity screening
• Android-first native application
• Offline-capable field workflow
• Referral management
• Prescription & spectacle tracking
• Secure child health records
• Cloud sync & reporting
• Programme & impact dashboards
• School and partner onboarding
• Web registration portal
• Research-grade data capture

Technology stack

• React
• TypeScript
• Node
• Supabase
• Microsoft Azure
• PostgreSQL
• API infrastructure
• AI models