Abstract

In December 2008, the big news in all publications round the world was that a British scientist, Joshua Silver (Silver) had invented a pair of adaptive lenses that could be adjusted by the wearer to his exact prescription just by adjusting the amount of silicone fluid inside the glasses through a syringe. This social entrepreneur’s aim was to distribute his glasses to all the poor people in developing countries who could not afford to see an optometrist or buy glasses but needed glasses. Most developing countries had very few optometrists and they were spread far apart. Silver’s aim was to make these glasses at a cost of one or two dollars each and distribute them to the poor worldwide at the rate of 100 million pairs per year to reach the target of a billion pairs by the year 2020. However, Silver faced several challenges in his efforts to “scale up”.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Business Model
• Base of the Pyramid
• Entrepreneurship
• and Social Entrepreneurship

Keywords

Social entrepreneurship, base of the pyramid, business model, sustainability, scaling up, adaptive lenses, British Scientist, Joshua Silver, Social entrepreneur