Jordan Kassalow is the 50-year-old founder and CEO of VisionSpring, a social enterprise that provides affordable eyeglasses to people in developing countries. He has over 25 years of experience in global health and founded VisionSpring in 2001. VisionSpring has impacted over 84 million lives by providing spectacles and trained over 7,500 health workers in Bangladesh to sell reading glasses. Their efforts focus on India, where they have improved the lives of 23 million people and supported 9,500 jobs through $31.9 million in investments since 2001.

1. Jordan Kassalow
Founder of VisionSpring
Leighton, Martin,
Dominic, Regan

2. Age: 50
Married with 3 children
Working Headquarters: New York City
Served as Director of the River Blindness Division at Helen Keller
International
Received Doctorate of Optometry from the New England College
of Optometry and a Fellowship in Preventive Ophthalmology and
Masters in Public Health from Johns

3. Trained as an optometrist in early age
Participated in medical mission in rural areas of Mexico
Studied at the Aravind Eye Hospital in India and led Helen Keller
International’s work on river blindness to help poor people with
poor eyesight
Started VisionSpring in 2001 to aid affords in helping poor in
improving eyesight quality

4. Impacted 84.7 million people by providing spectacles
Helped at least 20,000 people in getting jobs which improved economy and
liveihoods.
$12.8 million invested for breakthrough innovations
Trained 7,500 health workers in Bangladesh to sell reading glasses
With its Global Partnership launched, it is selling its glasses in 18 developing
countries through 23 different partners
Awarded Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship in 2009

5. Most efforts are in India with 23million lives being improved on
9500 people were thus supported for their jobs with $31.9million invested
on breakthrough innovations since 2001
VisionSpring has developed market-appropriate business models to deliver
affordable and high-quality eyeglasses to consumers
Target customers are in remote rural regions of India who are able to
reach their optical stores
They launched their Global Partnerships scheme to leverage existing
public, private and other non-profit organizations to achieve their
intended impact and global scale improvement

6.  http://healthmarketinnovations.org/blog/scaling-impact-through-
partnerships-visionspring-case-study
 http://acumen.org/investment/visionspring/
 http://wbi.worldbank.org/developmentmarketplace/ready-to-
scale/visionspring?destination=&viewall=all&
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisionSpring
 http://visionspring.org/staff/kevin-hassey-3/
 http://www.schwabfound.org/content/jordan-kassalow
 http://www.skollfoundation.org/entrepreneur/jordan-kassalow/