TwoBillionEyes – Last mile distribution of eye care services to BoP customers

Situation

1,000,000,000 people in the world suffer from insufficient eyesight that can be remedied by wearing a pair of eyeglasses. 90% of those would benefit from having glasses, live in low income countries. 

TWOBILLIONEYES Foundation is registered in the Netherlands and collaborates with established NGOs, Optichange bv and social enterprises to assist with the production and distribution of affordable eyeglasses. TWOBILLIONEYES has developed a vision testing kit and a eyeglass assembly kit, that would allow an agent to conduct a vision test and assemble customised eye glasses within just 30 minutes. 

Maersk has been approached to run a pilot in Kenya to test the vision of their truck drivers in Mombasa.

Assignment

Proportion lead the design of a youth agent model in Kenya, that include service design and business modelling.

Approach

1. Desk research on:
   • Optometric sector in Kenya
   • Stakeholder mapping 
   • Competitor analysis 
   • Redefining the problem statement(s) and design challenge(s)
2. Empathy research:
   • Interviews with Maersk management
   • Interviews with truck drivers
   • Interviews with youths as potential agents
   • Interview with other logistics companies 
   • Interviews with government officers
3. Ideation:
   • Use journey design of the end-to-end vision testing service
   • Soft skill training design for youths as vision testing agents
   • Ideation for business model
4. Pilot:
   • Onboarding of youths as agents
   • Service campaign among truck drivers
   • Vision testing and assembling eye glasses among 550 truck drivers
   • Service design optimisation
5. Scale:
   • Business development within transport sector. 
   • B2B sales Mars Logistics  

Results

Eight unemployed youth have been trained and transformed into a confident and cohesive team of Vision Vijana agents. These agents then delivered a service whereby drivers would redeem their voucher for undergoing a vision test and receiving corrective eyeglasses if needed,

Due to high turn-up of drivers, 550 drivers aged from 20 to 73 years have been tested. It can also be concluded that each of the VisionVijana agents has been successful in performing the required tasks, based on the exams and observations of the trainers and technical supervisors. The drivers have rated their service delivery with a high rate of satisfaction (8.6 on 10 point scale). 

The B2B business model targeting transport sector turned out to be far more viable than directly aiming at individuals in need of eye glasses. We were able to get follow-up clients (Mars Logistics) and developed a business plan for TwoBillioneEyes to attract investors in financing in testing equipment, supplies and training.

This project was commissioned by TwoBillionEyes Foundation and led by Thomas and Proportion Global consultants in Kenya. If you’ve enjoyed reading this case and want to dive deeper, we’d love to hear from you and we will connect you with relevant designers like Thomas, who worked on this project Contact Us