A year of late nights hunched over hot glue in a Jester dorm room and rehearsing their pitch presentations paid off for Raghav Katta, An (Ian) Vo and Hieu (Johnny) Tran. On Thursday, they won first place in the Herb Kelleher Entrepreneurship Center’s Freed Family Pitch Competition — and $21,000 to invest in All Eyes, their innovative eye care product.

During their freshman year, Katta, Vo and Tran took part in a biodesign program within Texas Engineering World Health. Through their research, they found that over a billion people are unable to access vision care, partly due to the high financial barrier.

Inspired, they designed a lighter and more affordable instrument for conducting eye examinations and determining prescriptions, making it accessible to developing countries and rural communities that cannot afford the more traditional models that are currently available. The instruments are called phoropters.

“We want to go to these remote communities and do it ourselves, (and) see someone smile as they can see clearly,” biomedical engineering sophomore Vo said. “The main point is (to) try our best to change their lives for the better.”

Vo said that traditional phoropters prove expensive and inaccessible, using dozens of lenses that work in conjunction. Katta, a mechanical engineering sophomore, said that All Eyes uses an adjustable “liquid” lens instead. While the average phoropter costs $3,500 and weighs 10 to 20 pounds, Katta said the All Eyes prototype costs $30 to make and weighs one to two pounds.

Tran, a biomedical engineering sophomore and an international student from Vietnam, said they determined how All Eyes could best help the community through conducting interviews in Vietnam, India and the United States. 

“My family is a very big family, we have an entire group of relatives (who) volunteer to go to these regions (and) bring food and medical (supplies),” Tran said. “Most of the regions I visit in Vietnam have very basic medical stations. They don’t have more developed technology like eye care.”

Katta said the development process involved a lot of research and trial-and-error. 

“You know how when you’re doing research and you click a link, it turns a different shade of blue? If you type ‘phoropter’ or ‘liquid lens’ on my computer, every link has been changed to the color,” Katta said. “We did so much reading to understand the current scope of the technology.”

Vo said his Vietnamese roots motivate him to improve vision care access in his parents’ home country of Vietnam, which proves vulnerable to hurricanes and typhoons. Tran said he plans on returning to Vietnam over the summer and bringing All Eyes to different communities.

“Imagine you’re a farmer — you lose everything when the typhoons come and have to start from scratch,” Vo said. “You don’t have money to care about your visual care if you don’t even have enough to eat or put clothes on your back.”

The funding from the Freed Family Pitch Competition allows the team to accelerate the manufacturing process and begin distribution, Vo said. Tran said he almost cried when they announced the winners. 

“I’m glad I pitched before we heard the finalist awards because my voice was so shot from screaming and my hands were completely red (from) clapping so much,” Katta said. “It was ballistic.”

Vo said the moment will become a core memory from his UT experience. He said struggling alongside Katta and Tran drives him forward.

“These two guys are my best friends,” Vo said. “I call them brothers.”