Medicine & Health Panel Event: Orbis – Use of Technology and Innovation to combat avoidable blindness around the world
28th October 2026 from 5:00pm — 8:00pm • Information Technologists' Hall
This presentation provides a fascinating insight into how technology and virtual reality are helping the Orbis charity to combat avoidable blindness worldwide.
Our very own Larry Benjamin will be providing an entertaining introduction to some of the key areas where the eyesight charity (Orbis) is making effective use of technology, such as
- Use of technology in “flying eye hospitals” to support difficult to reach areas of the world
- Innovative tools such as Cybersight – a telemedicine approach to support and train medical professional around the world
- Cost effective use of Virtual reality equipment to provide realistic training and support for eye surgeons with lower financial resources
This hybrid event will allow participants to connect both remotely and in person, where we will be providing demonstration of the type of equipment used.
About the Speaker:
Larry Benjamin is a recently retired ophthalmologist and previous trustee of Orbis UK. An active member of the WCIT Medicine and Health panel, he first became involved with Orbis in 2004 with a volunteer assignment to the Philippines. Since then, he has actively supported 16 projects, training ophthalmologists in Zambia, China, Myanmar, Pakistan and Ghana to name a few, with both the Flying Eye Hospital and on independent hospital-based programmes.
In 2016, Larry won an award for his dedication to improving global eye health at the Charity Staff and Volunteer Awards and was a finalist in the Humanitarian Awards category of the 2017 International Bond Development Awards. He has previously presented insights on use of data science to improve safety and outcomes in eye surgery.