From the article:

For too many of the world's poorest people, life is just a blur. WHO estimates that roughly a billion people—mostly in developing countries—need eyeglasses to read, write, work, and go about their daily lives. But they cannot find them, let alone afford the high price tag. It can take as much as three months' wages or more to afford glasses in many African countries.

At least 10 % of this group is made up of youngsters of school age.

These vision problems could eventually be corrected on a large scale through use of cheap, self-correcting spectacles, invented by Oxford University physicist Josh Silver, and being made by a British NGO for between $5–$10, with the ultimate target price being about $1 a pair.

Silver made his prototype glasses, called AdSpecs, in the mid-90s after helping cosmetics giant Estee Lauder develop an inexpensive mirror with adjustable magnification. While experimenting with his mirror prototypes, Silver found he could adjust the lens in the mirrors by varying the amount of silicone oil between two flexible membranes.

Seeing Clearly for the First Time

Fast forward to 2008, and at the invitation of the World Bank, Adaptive Eyecare Limited has been showcasing the new AdSpecs (Adaptive Spectacles) at the Bank as part of a global appeal to expand production to reach everyone with vision problems.

The group's CEO, Julian Lambert, believes the new AdSpecs, early versions of which would have made Harry Potter feel right at home, could not only restore opportunity and hope to people's lives, but, on a broad enough scale, could help countries move more briskly toward their Millennium Development Goals in health and education, just to name two.

"Most people with terrible vision have never had an eye test, and so have just adapted to their blurry world and lost their ability to learn, to read and write, and to function," says Lambert, currently on leave from DFID in the UK to run Adaptive Eyecare Ltd. "But you should see their faces once they put their glasses on and see the world around for them clearly for the first time."