Third-year international development and business student, Rachel Friesen and her team recently claimed one of the top spots in Applied Health Sciences’ (AHS) Big Ideas Challenge for their company EyeCheck.
Photo (left to right): Tania Del Matto (Director, GreenHouse), Rachel Friesen (EyeCheck), Andrew Jackson (VP, Accelerator Centre)
EyeCheck, is a for-profit company that uses smartphone technology and proprietary hardware to provide much-needed vision assessment with just two pictures.
Friesen, who works as EyeCheck’s Social Impact Analyst made the winning three-minute pitch, citing both the tremendous need for optometry support to eliminate preventable blindness in the developing world as well as the applications of their technology in Canada.
“EyeCheck had the strongest pitch and was clearly past the ideation phase,” said St. Paul’s GreenHouse Director, Tania Del Matto. “The judges decided to award EyeCheck the prize of the Market Validation Canvas (valued at $500) along with four hours of mentorship through the Accelerator Centre, assistance that EyeCheck will greatly benefit from, given the stage they are at in their business.”
The Big Ideas Challenge for Health and Wellbeing encourages undergraduate students to develop innovative interventions, for which the primary purpose is to improve the quality of life of individuals or communities. In total all four spots in GreenHouse were grants to the four most promising early stage ideas lead by AHS students.
"EyeCheck's growth is hugely due to the amazing mentorship that we have received,” said Friesen. “The opportunity to receive mentorship through the Accelerator Centre is invaluable for our continued growth. After the presentation I felt a wave of joy and emotion, as the journey of Big Ideas had truly pushed me as an individual, so for it to be over was wonderfully overwhelming, but I felt a wave of pride as I believe I represented EyeCheck well."
EyeCheck was among nine finalists, chosen from 12 groups of students who expressed interest after the Big Ideas Challenge for Health and Wellbeing was launched by the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences and GreenHouse in October 2014.