EyeNetics App

More than a quarter of the world’s population — 2.2 billion people —  experience the ill effects of vision disability out of which, 1 billion cases could have been prevented or have been left unaddressed, as indicated by the first World Vision Report published by the World Health Organization (WHO) on October 8, 2019. These 1 billion people include those with moderate or extreme distance vision impairment or blindness due to unaddressed refractive error (123.7 million), unaddressed presbyopia (826 million), cataract (65.2 million), glaucoma (6.9 million), corneal opacities (4.2 million), diabetic retinopathy (3 million), and trachoma (2 million).

India is known as the Blind Capital of the world. At 8 million, India has the world’s largest blind population. Nearly half of it was preventable. In India, 41% of children (under 18 years) are estimated to need visual correction but are not corrected. About 42% of workers, 42% of drivers, and 45% of elderly people are similarly placed in remote areas where they don’t have access to the right specialists and tools.

Diabetic retinopathy (DR), as one of the complications of diabetes, is considered one of the leading causes of vision loss and visual impairment in adults, which can lead to blindness in severe cases. It's challenging to detect the symptoms of DR in the early stage. Blindness often suddenly occurs.

Ophthalmologists in rural areas aren't financially well off and can't afford to buy expensive slit lamps. An ophthalmologist finds it very difficult to diagnose any visual disorders by looking at the patient's retinal image because they use a low-resolution slit lamp, which doesn't record a detailed image of the retina.

Almost 44% of the world's population lives in rural areas where they don't have access to the right specialists with the right tools to predict visual disorders at an early stage.

According to the surveys conducted, there are only 150 ophthalmologists in these remote areas in India who can afford expensive slit lamps. Rest all ophthalmologists are forced to use low-cost Slit Lamp which doesn't offer a level-of-service needed in these rural areas.

EyeNetics is an AI-enabled app that can predict Diabetic Retinopathy and Glaucoma at an early stage by scanning just the retinal image of the patient.

The way this app works is pretty straightforward: all you have to do is input some patient data and a retinal scan, and the app will use an associated ML Model to determine whether the patient has Diabetic Retinopathy or Glaucoma or not.

Our app leverages Microsoft Azure Services for -

•Storing the patient's data on the cloud

•Deploying an ML model for analysis of the retinal image of the patient.

•Storing the UID of ophthalmologists and keeping it secure

•It uses Azure Cognitive Services for Vision to analyze the retinal images.

The retinal image doesn't have to come from a high-definition Slit lamp with an imaging system for the app to work. As it makes predictions using a machine learning model and artificial neural network, it can be used with any low-resolution slit lamp retinal image.

Because a low-resolution Slit lamp cannot capture a detailed image of the retina, an ophthalmologist finds it challenging to predict visual abnormalities just by looking at the image. Nevertheless, thanks to EyeNetics, this is no longer an issue.

The app uses a database of over 32000 retinal images to identify patterns of visual impairment, and its prediction accuracy is much higher than that of a rural ophthalmologist who does not have access to high-resolution ophthalmic equipment, making it a very dependable tool.

As we all know that nowadays everyone owns a phone, which means accessibility would not be an issue anyone from all over the globe can access our app, and patients can view their eye test prediction by clicking on a link provided by the ophthalmologist.

• With this app, we plan to address and change the practicing method of ophthalmologists in remote areas. 

• Our target audience is primarily ophthalmologists who are searching for low-cost alternatives to high-resolution Slit lamps. Our goal is to assist these rural ophthalmologists in providing their patients with better care, which will ultimately result in a decrease in avoidable visual impairment.

• As we know that almost 70% of the Indian population and 44% of the world's population lives in rural areas where they don’t have access to the right ophthalmologists with the right tools to predict visual disorders. With this app, we hope to improve the quality of care offered by rural ophthalmologists in order to better assist underserved populations and reverse the trend of avoidable blindness.

• Our vision is to reduce preventive blindness cases by making eye screening more accessible and affordable and we want to automate the whole process of Eye Disorder prediction with AI. 

• Our app is not only for rural ophthalmologists but it is for every ophthalmologist who wants to uplift their level of service at a low cost.

• By simultaneously lowering their costs and expenses (as they no longer need to purchase a costly Slit lamp) we intend to raise the level of service provided by these rural ophthalmologists which would automatically result in an increase in the income of these ophthalmologists.

• EyeNetics is not just an app, but a mission to revolutionize vision correction and make vision correction affordable and accessible for all with the help of AI. With this app, we hope to bring down the graph of preventable blindness.

I'm taking part in this contest individually. I'm a ninth-grader from DELHI, India. I am also a member of the CBSE and INTEL-created AI Students Committee. I'm interested in technology and want to create something that can significantly improve society and provide a solution to millions of problems. I am among those who focus more on the problem than on the solution. Plans include starting my own business to produce tech-related goods that can be used to solve a variety of everyday issues. I'm quite interested in programming, and I'm familiar with C, PYTHON, HTML, JAVA, JAVASCRIPT, and MYSQL. In a nutshell, I love technology.

I have taken the advice of some ophthalmologists and my friends and got positive feedback about this app. Based on feedback from some users, I tried to make this app more user-friendly and increase its accuracy. I have not launched the app yet, but I will undoubtedly do so in the future. 

I am also currently working on adding a chatbot in this app that can solve the queries of the users.

We took a survey in late January 2023 regarding our app and got positive feedback from some ophthalmologists. According to them this idea can completely revolutionize vision correction and can make it accessible and affordable for all. With this app, I hope to solve this problem from the ground root level.

I also made an effort to comprehend the reasons why many people don't even get a medical checkup and why people lack access to healthcare services.

We took many surveys in order to understand the ground-root problem in these rural areas and as I stated in my Problem Statement, most of the tech products aren't made up for tier-2 and tier-3 cities as they are not easily available in these low-resourceful areas. But we are making use of apps and websites to serve these cities because almost everyone nowadays owns a phone that's why we are confident that we will surely solve this problem from the root level.

I have made a working model of my app which has an accuracy of 87% 

Also, I have made an Ml model to predict diabetic retinopathy that recognizes patterns in the retinal scan and uses a database of 32000 retinal scans to predict whether the patient is having diabetic retinopathy or not.

A self-classification algorithm has been made by me to analyze the patient's information

link-https://github.com/MedHaulayus...

We have not launched our app yet but in the near future, we are planning to impact almost 100 million people and especially those who are not financially well off.

We are constantly trying to make the user experience better because it plays a major role in attraction.

I need funds to develop my idea and also someone who could really help me in building my final product. Right now I am able to take only some people's advice but under the right guidance, I think that I can really understand the problem more perfectly and build a nice solution. In short, I am participating in this competition to get the right guidance and financial support.

With the help of Solve, I want to collaborate with health tech companies and want to get more patient data because to make a big impact we all need to work with each other.

Through Solve I seek mentors who can guide me in the further development of this app and can help me to make a true impact. I am currently working alone on this app but am actively searching for innovators who can collaborate with me and can together make this idea revolution.

We have made a self-classification algorithm which is a new concept. The use of this algorithm is to classify between images themselves and recognize patterns of diabetic retinopathy to predict in the future. Our ML model is of Supervised learning.

If we get selected in the top 10 in Solve then I would use this opportunity to collaborate with healthcare companies who can help me in the further development of this project. 

I see EyeNetics as not just an app but a company that provides a range of solutions for vision correction. Our markets are international markets worth $20,302.8 million where we want to completely change how vision correction is done with our app. Our impact goals are-

• We are working on making this app more accurate as accuracy plays a very important role in visual disorders prediction.

• We are also trying to make this app more user-friendly and want to add more services like cataract prediction and other visual disorders prediction so that it can also be used by urban ophthalmologists who are looking for low-cost alternatives.

• EyeNetics is not only focused on making apps, but we are also trying to make other products like- an accessory that can be attached to a smartphone's camera and can capture a retinal image of the user and will automatically get analyzed by our software without the need of an ophthalmologist.

• Our core business is to innovate products according to the market's needs and build affordable and accessible products for all.

• With this app, we want to impact global markets mainly in developing countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Brazil, Africa, etc.

• Talking about the next 5 years plan then we want to impact almost 100 million people and 10 million ophthalmologists mainly including rural ophthalmologists.

We are already fulfilling targets 3.8.1 and 3.8.2 of GOOD HEALTH AND WELL BEING as our app is not costly and can be used with and low-cost slit lamp which would eventually decrease the cost of an Ophthalmologist.

Target

3.8

Achieve universal health coverage, including financial risk protection, access to quality essential healthcare services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all

Indicators

3.8.1

Coverage of essential health services

3.8.2

The proportion of the population with large household expenditures on health as a share of total household expenditure or income

• We are using CNN and Ml models to recognize eye patterns which help us in prediction.
• We are Using a database of about 33000 retinal scans on the basis of which our app works.
• Self-classification algorithms have been made which automate the whole process and the ophthalmologist no longer needs to analyze the image themselves.
• In the future, we are planning to make the app vernacular.
• The algorithm itself recognizes and analyzes the retinal image and predicts.
• We have made a UID of ophthalmologists through which they can access the app from any phone from all over the globe.
• We will be using MFA(Multi-Factor Authentication) to reduce the risks of someone breaking into someone’s account.

Link to the ML Model(https://github.com/MedHaulayus...)

ML model link(https://github.com/MedHaulayus...)

We are a technology company that provides affordable healthcare solutions

Our business model is a B2C subscription model.

Our target audience is mainly ophthalmologist practicing in rural areas who are looking for low-cost alternatives to an expensive Slit lamp. We would be charging them a subscription fee of ₹1000 per month and would offer them services like Catarct prediction, Diabetic Retinopathy prediction, and Glaucoma prediction. All analysis and prediction would automatically get stored on the cloud which can be accessed by the patient and ophthalmologist from any device.

We are not only just focused on rural ophthalmologists but we also want to impact urban ophthalmologists who want to uplift their level of service at a low cost.

To survive the market it is very important to constantly innovate solutions and have a firm determination on the problem than the solution. Whenever we think that our solution is not solving the problem then we immediately pivot the solution and start innovating other solutions. We are also working on an accessory for our app which would automate the whole process.

Our markets are international markets worth $20,302.8 million and we want to mainly impact developing countries like Brazil, Africa, Sri Lanka, etc.

We would be charging our users a subscription fee of ₹1000 per month and would offer them services like Catarct prediction, Diabetic Retinopathy prediction, and Glaucoma prediction. All analysis and prediction would automatically get stored on the cloud which can be accessed by the patient and ophthalmologist from any device. We are looking forward to raising funds from DST(GOVERNMENT OF INDIA) and are hoping to collaborate with some health-tech companies. Our ultimate aim is to provide affordable healthcare solutions that include devices, apps, and websites.

To date, we have not raised any funding from any VCs and Angel Investors but are open to non-dilutive grants.

Already we have launched several health-tech products that include a heart disease-predicting website and a portable health monitoring device for old people.

From an investment perspective, we are looking for strategic investors who can act as our partners and help us to grow and expand our business.

To date, we are completely bootstrapped and have not raised any investment funding from anyone. We are looking forward to receiving grants from innovation competitions like Microsoft Imagine Cup Junior, Vivo Ignite, Inspire Manak, IBM Call For Code and DST(Government of India). We have already applied for some of these competitions but results are still pending. Talking about the next 5 years we are looking forward to not raising investment funding but are open to non-dilutive grants. 

Because right now we are still in the prototyping stage and there is no such working capital required hence we have not raised any funding from any VCs or Angel Investors.