NewDay Speaker Jordan Kassalow, Founder of VisionSpring
Dr. Jordan Kassalow is the co-chairman and founder of VisionSpring, providing affordable access to eyeglasses everywhere. He is also the founder of Scojo, New York and the Global Health Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations. Prior to his position at the Council, he served as director of the River Blindness Division at Helen Keller International.
VisionSpring is a social enterprise that sells affordable eye glasses and vision care to populations the traditional market has neglected. VisionSpring trains local vision entrepreneurs to operate microfranchises, travelling from village to village conducting eye exams and selling glasses. They are the main recipient of Warby Parker’s “buy one, give one” program and have delivered over 1.6 million glasses to bottom-of-the-pyramid communities.
Dr. Kassalow was recently named to Forbes Impact 30, a list of the world’s leading Social Entrepreneurs and won Goldman Sachs Foundation Partnership for Non-Profit Ventures: National Business Plan Competition for Non-Profit Organizations. In addition, last year, VisionSpring won Duke University’s Social Innovation Award.
Dr. Kassalow has appeared on Brian Williams special segment “Making a Difference” on NBC’s Nightly News, CBS News, ABC’s Good Morning America and CNN and has lectured at numerous universities including Harvard, MIT, University of Michigan, Duke, and Oxford.