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Project Impact, Inc. is headquartered in Berkeley, CA with R&D operations for the hearing aid at a dedicated lab in New Jersey. Additional partners and consultants contribute to Project Impact's work from Washington D.C., Denmark, India, and the UK. Through this small team of dedicated and carefully placed partners and consultants, Project Impact is able to develop and distribute top quality medical technologies at globally affordable prices.
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Sir John Wilson
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The vision for developing an affordable, high-quality hearing aid came from Sir John and Lady Jean Wilson, who are well known for their leadership in the creation and sustenance of non government organizations which focus on disability alleviation worldwide. Poverty and disability, especially in the developing world, are often highly correlated. While disability can be either the cause or consequence of poverty, The Wilsons demonstrated with astounding success that in many cases the alleviation of one affliction can in turn alleviate the other.
In the case of hearing impairment in the United States , persons who experience severe to profound hearing loss before retirement are expected to earn only 50-70% of their non-hearing impaired peers and lose between $220,000 and $400,000 in earnings over their working life. In the developing world, the situation is quite similar, but for those who live hand to mouth, any loss in income can be devastating. Around the world hearing impaired individuals typically experience lower wages, higher unemployment and underemployment, and lower occupational mobility.
In late 1999, The Wilsons suggested to Project Impact founder David Green the possibility of producing a low cost, high quality hearing aid for manufacturing and distribution throughout the developing world. An initial feasability study in 2000 assessed the possibility of making The Wilsons' vision a reality. Less than three years later, the first "Impact 1" affordable, digitally programmable hearing aid came off our fully functional production line at Aurolab in Madurai, India.
Project Impact initiated our development of the affordable foldable intraocular lens at the request of The Aravind Eye System and Aurolab in August of 2002. Although Aurolab currently manufactures affordable intraocular lenses for the Aravind Eye Hospitals and customers in 85 other countries world wide, they do not yet have an affordable hydrophobic acrylic product line. Given the rising preference among ophthalmic surgeons worldwide for hydrophobic acrylic intraocular lenses, Project Impact and Aurolab have teamed up once again to make top quality ophthalmic products globally affordable.
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