Samsung supports India’s eye care through Galaxy Upcycling

Celebrating World Sight Day on Thursday, South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics announced its plan to expand the campaign of fundus diagnosis using older Galaxy smartphones in India. The campaign will cover 150,000 people by 2023 through the Galaxy Upcycling Program.

The Galaxy Upcycling Program is a project launched in 2017 to convert old Galaxy smartphones into IoT devices. A case in point is the EYELIKE Fundus Camera, a portable device developed in cooperation with the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), Yonsei University Health System, and LabSD.

According to the IAPB, about 1.1 billion people live with sight disabilities. Ninety percent of visual impairment is treatable in the early stage or preventable, but those in medically underserved communities do not even have access to ophthalmic health checkups.

To give access to early diagnosis to people in far-flung areas, Samsung Electronics started to supply digital medical devices to Vietnam in 2018 and expanded its support to India, Morocco, and Papua New Guinea last year. In India, 200 devices were utilized to diagnose 5,000 patients. “We will do our best to make a sustainable society using cutting-edge technologies,” said Mohan Rao Goli, CTO of Samsung R&D Institute, Bangalore.


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