Oli chronicle

29 JUNE 2021

Stay focused to achieve the dream CHRONICLES OF ALO

-Md Oliullah Abdal

I belong to a small village named Ichhapur in West Bengal. As a child, I had
refractive error and always visited the only eye doctor available then in our
area. I remember being thrilled with the clarity of my vision after visiting him.
It was only later I came to know that he was an optometrist and there were no
ophthalmologists in the vicinity. At the age of 11, I made up my mind to
become an optometrist as I saw the respect and appreciation the profession
attracted. After completing my 12th standard exams, I got myself enrolled into
the program even though I had an option to prepare for my medical entrance
exams.

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29 JUNE 2021

I joined the optometry program
in George College of Management
and Science at Kolkata in 2005.
Coming from a humble Bengali
background, the course work was
challenging as it was entirely in
English. I found it difficult to cope
with the new subject and
language. The entire first
semester was a roller coaster ride
for me. Luckily, some of my
seniors helped me understand the
depth and scope of the topics. I
fondly remember the evenings I
spent in the library with my
friends, Pradipta Kar and Nasfar
Jahan, who helped me translate
the lectures from English to
Bengali for my understanding
and I’m grateful to them till this
day. Into my 2nd semester, I
started getting better at English
and Hindi, began to excel in
academics and also went on to
top my class.

I pursued my clinical internship from Aditya Jyot Eye Hospital in Mumbai post which I
enrolled for the fellowship program at L V Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) in Hyderabad.
Things were never the same after joining LVPEI. It was the beginning of my learning
journey. I learnt things both clinical and otherwise. Two of my biggest influences were
Dr Vijaya Kumari Gothwal and Dr Deepak Kumar Bagga. The Centre for Sight
Enhancement (CSE) at LVPEI taught me all I know about communication skills, patient
counselling and management and more importantly, patience, all of which I use very
much till date. LVPEI taught me things beyond the scope of clinical practice.

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29 JUNE 2021

I knew teaching was my calling.
So I joined Aditya Jyot Institute of
Optometry as a faculty and in
parallel, started pursuing an MBA
in healthcare services. In 2012, I
graduated and joined Krishna Eye
Centre in Mumbai as the Chief
administrator & Head of the
Optometry services. My journey
has been a blend of optometry
education, clinical practice and
hospital administration, so far.

Krishna Eye Centre was another turning
point for my career. I was very fortunate
to meet my mentor, supporter and guide,
Dr Nankani. His support, guidance and
contribution has been immense. When
you find people who recognise your
capability, support your thoughts and
ideas, your confidence increases and that
aids you in taking bigger and better
decisions. The same happened with me.

Being the Chief Administrator, conducting audits was a common practice. In one of our
audits, I found that the clinic had a 50% drop out rate of patients who visited us with
asthenopia as they were not happy with our treatment. To address this issue, a binocular
vision clinic was set up at the centre on a trial basis to see if it helped the floating patient
population. The hospital saw a 90% increase in the patient turn over and conversion rates
and the most common diagnoses were convergence and accommodation related issues.
The problem however was the time taken to assess each patient. We tried our best to
overcome this by managing things well at the centre.

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29 JUNE 2021

In 2013 – 14, we focused on increasing the awareness on binocular vision anomalies and
it’s therapy among eye care practitioners with scientific and clinical evidence. We also
launched our sports vision clinic and screened over 300 cricket players, including our
very own Indian cricket team, which still remains a memorable experience.

In 2015, I came to know of the College of Optometrists in Vision Development (COVD)
workshop at Sankara Eye Hospital conducted by Dr Robert Sannet. I did not want to miss
that chance so, Dr Nankani and I flew to Bangalore to attend the workshop.

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29 JUNE 2021

The workshop really changed the way we looked at things in India for binocular vision
and vision therapy. I learnt a lot from the workshop and after going back to Mumbai, I
started an exclusive binocular vision clinic with advanced vision therapy modules. The
clinic received a good foot fall and saw higher success rates. This made us decide to plan a
multi-centre binocular vision and vision therapy clinic at Mumbai. However, the plan
could not be executed due to budget constraints. But we shifted track and got back again.

In 2015 after we faced a hurdle, I thought why not come up with my own program
instead of purchasing someone else’s? That was when the seeds of Bynocs were sown. I
started thinking about moving from the available visual therapy modules to innovate an
indigenous project in India.

Having discussed the idea with my mentor, we
planned to go ahead. I got a freelance coder and
a tech company to help us with the prototype
which got validated in 2016. We called it Kanohi
Vision, which means sharp vision in Maori.
After validating the product, we conducted a
screening program where we tested and
screened 12,000 individuals working at various
IT companies in Mumbai. We found that 50% of
those we screened had non strabismic binocular
vision problems (NSBVA) and 30% among these
with symptoms of asthenopia were given 1-
week of therapy sessions at our clinic. They
were really happy with the results the product
provided.When we planned to make Kanohi
Vision available in the market, a competitor
launched a similar product with the same
features. So, we had to back down and upgrade
our software.

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29 JUNE 2021

My dream of owning a health tech start- We then came up with an upgraded
up with a clinical optometry version of the comprehensive binocular
background was challenging. I utilized vision software – Bynocs (short for
my clinical expertise as a foundation for binocular vision) in 2017. Bynocs
innovation but managing challenging represents binocular vision which is of
cases with traditional treatment utmost importance in the human visual
protocol could not yield the best system. We gave our product for clinical
outcome for certain binocular vision testing in many institutes like Sankara
conditions. I accumulated many Netralaya (SN), All India Institute of
innovative ideas by reading several Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Shroff Charity
scientific literature, attending Eye hospital, Aravind Eye Hospital etc.
workshops and got into innovation to and showcased it on a public platform at
simplify this. AIOS conference in Jaipur as one of the
top innovations in ophthalmology. In
2020, we officially launched Bynocs at
AIOS, Gurugram. Bynocs is a cloud based,
hardware agnostic, tele-health binocular
vision software which can be accessed on
any screen over 11 inches in size with an
internet connection (2G and above).

We also have 2 international patents it was a mammoth achievement for us.

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29 JUNE 2021

While we were trying to break barriers and reach higher peaks, COVID struck the world
and for a brief time period, everything came to a halt. However, as I said before, what
we think of as failures are actually stepping stones for success in disguise. We came up
with a major change in our therapy protocol and went virtual. As of today, we are
experts in zoom and our virtual academy in India offers services to patients all over the
world including Europe, Asia, America, etc.

During this ongoing pandemic, we
managed hundreds of adult patients
with amblyopia through our virtual
sessions. One such patient, a 69 year
old year male from Ireland diagnosed
with anisometropic amblyopia in the
left eye with a best corrected visual
acuity of 6/76 was referred to us. He
was diagnosed with amblyopia when
he was young and had also tried
conventional patching but found no
improvement in vision. After 6 weeks
of Bynocs sessions, his vision
improved to 6/7.5 vision in the
amblyopic eye with good stereopsis.

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29 JUNE 2021

There are many such success stories with Bynocs.
Major Achievements for Bynocs so far:

India’s largest eye care hospitals have been using Bynocs
More than 475 eye care centres from India, Europe, USA and Latin America have
subscribed to Bynocs
Over 4000 patients have enrolled in the program
Multiple research papers under review for publication
Awards in 2019
Selected for Top innovation in Ophthalmology in All India Ophthalmological
Society Conference
Brandon Hall Silver Award for Best Advance in Gaming or Simulation Technology
Awards in 2020
Received second prize in The Winning Pitch Challenge organised by American
Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery
Winner of APEX award for Websites - Special Purpose
Winner of NASSCOM Emerge 50, 2020 awards in Health-tech category

Team Bynocs 8

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29 JUNE 2021

Success Mantra - Stay focused to
achieve the dream

Keep moving forward when you are trying to
build something from scratch even when it
seems impossible. Many factors might interfere
with your dedication but remember the support
you receive from your loved ones, family,
colleagues, and friends. This will serve as a
driving force and will keep you going during
tough times. I am also very fortunate to receive
an enormous support from my better half,
Nishat Tamanna and my mentors who helped
me achieve this.

Do you know a friend or a peer whose story is worth sharing? Please recommend them to us at
[email protected] so that we can reach out to them.

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