LRBT (Layton Rahmatulla Benevolent Trust) is Pakistan’s largest provider of free eye care. For decades, they’ve delivered sight-restoring treatment to millions of people who would otherwise be left behind. We are proud to collaborate with LRBT as one of our key data partners, a collaboration that has now been ongoing for several months.

Over this period, LRBT has played a crucial role in supporting OptikosPrime’s mission to make eye testing accessible for everyone, everywhere. Their contribution helps ensure that VisionCheck and Argus are trained on diverse, real-world populations, allowing us to build accurate, inclusive technology at a global scale.

The challenge

Refractive errors are the world’s most common eye condition, yet more than one billion people still live with uncorrected vision simply because they cannot access an eye test.

Emerging AI tools like VisionCheck and Argus aim to change this. But to achieve clinical-grade accuracy, these systems must be trained on data from diverse populations and environments, not just from high-income regions.

Without long-term, committed partners on the ground, it would be impossible to collect the balanced data needed to build a global, equitable eye-care technology.

LRBT has been that partner for us.

The solution

With support from Sightsavers, an international NGO dedicated to preventing avoidable blindness and supporting people with visual impairment and other disabilities, OptikosPrime established a strong collaboration with LRBT. Sightsavers has played a pivotal role in facilitating and strengthening this partnership. 

For several months, LRBT has been collecting labelled refraction data from its patients and securely sharing it with OptikosPrime. To make the process seamless and straightforward, we supply LRBT with dedicated mobile devices pre-loaded with our data-collection app. Everything is fully digitalised, no paperwork, no manual uploads, and no changes to LRBT’s normal clinical flow.

Our app, designed specifically for data collection, automatically encrypts, labels, and securely transfers the data to OptikosPrime, ensuring compliance and consistency.

This workflow allows LRBT to contribute high-quality data with minimal effort, while enabling us to build a dataset that does not exist anywhere in the world today. It is a proprietary combination of clinical-grade refraction measurements and mobile imagery, precisely the type of data required to train and validate VisionCheck and Argus.

This is how we move towards the world’s first accurate, fully mobile-based refraction test: by collaborating with partners like LRBT, who provide real-world, diverse data that cannot be replicated in synthetic conditions.

Their consistent contribution ensures that VisionCheck and Argus can learn from real patients with a broad spectrum of refractive errors and demographics. This diversity is essential for building solutions that perform reliably across different regions.

We are incredibly grateful for our partnership with LRBT. Their commitment to providing high-quality data from diverse populations is essential to building VisionCheck and Argus into tools that truly work for everyone. LRBT’s support brings us closer to delivering the world’s first fully mobile-based refraction test, and doing it in a way that prioritises inclusivity and global impact.

Ståle Fredlund Husby, Co-founder and COO, OptikosPrime

At LRBT, we believe in technologies that can help close the access gap in eye care. VisionCheck and Argus represent a future where accurate refraction testing can be brought directly to underserved communities. By contributing data, we’re helping accelerate a solution that aligns with our mission: ensuring that no one in Pakistan goes blind simply because they cannot afford treatment.

Zain Hasham, Chief Operating Officer (COO)

We prioritise data privacy in all our data collection efforts with LRBT and our partners. The devices we supply utilise our secure data-collection app, which immediately encrypts all captured data. We strictly adhere to GDPR principles and comply with local regulations throughout the secure transfer process. We only collect the information necessary to train our models and retain personal details only for the required duration. 

The Results

- This collaboration strengthens the foundation of our AI models and brings us closer to a future where:

- Anyone can check their vision using only a mobile

- Refractive errors can be detected early, even in remote or low-resource settings

- NGOs, hospitals, and community workers can screen thousands of people per day with minimal equipment

- Millions who would otherwise remain undiagnosed can finally access care

LRBT’s long-term involvement doesn’t just improve our technology; it also deepens our understanding of it. It helps shape a meaningful global impact on eye health by supporting solutions that scale far beyond traditional clinical setups.

What’s Next?

We are deeply appreciative of LRBT’s trust, dedication, and ongoing collaboration. As VisionCheck expands and Argus moves toward full launch, LRBT’s contribution ensures the technology is built on real diversity and built for global use.

Together, we are taking meaningful steps toward a world where high-quality vision testing is accessible to everyone.

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Interested in a collaboration? Reach out to learn how we could work togehter.