At just 26 years old, Samit Sakib Gore is transforming affordable eye health through innovative, sustainable solutions.

At just 26 years old, Samit Sakib Gore is transforming affordable eye health through innovative, sustainable solutions. As Director of Operations and Innovation at Vision Friend Sakib Gore, he has scaled it from a first-generation self-funded initiative to a global model. His work has reached 1,217 villages in rural India, impacting millions through free eye tests, cataract surgeries, and screenings for glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy.

Inspired by his father, Sakib Gore, and a realization during the COVID-19 pandemic, Samit co-founded Vision Friend Eyewear in 2022, ensuring affordable spectacles while funding free eye care. Knowing affordability alone wasn’t enough, he co-founded VCU (We See You) Series, offering ultra-affordable eyewear at just $0.38 exclusively to NGOs, governments, and social enterprises worldwide. His initiatives address uncorrected presbyopia, a leading cause of vision impairment affecting over half of adults over 35, with women disproportionately impacted in low- and middle-income countries.

His Young Eyes initiative targets myopia prevention in schools, aligning with WHO & IAPB’s Specs 2030 goals. Recognized as an IAPB Systems Leader, Samit is on a mission to expand his impact to 100,000 villages globally, proving that sustainability just not charity is the key to ending vision impairment. We have made eyewear affordable, but we need organizations & partners to make it accessible. We see you. We see the change you’re making. Let’s see together."