University of Calgary student finalist in national entrepreneur competition

Being a university med student is hard enough, but Athy Ambikkumar is adding to that challenge by running a company.

He co-founded Remote Optical and has been selected as a finalist in the Student Entrepreneur National Competition hosted by Enactus and HSBC Bank Canada.

"It's definitely not easy being a student entrepreneur and balancing both lives, said Ambikkumar.

"It shouldn't be feasible, but somehow we make it work and so I cannot exaggerate how excited I am to meet all the other students who have come up with amazing projects in this competition."

Ambikkumar says a tool used by all ophthalmologists is the "slit lamp" where the patient's chin is placed on a cradle and the doctor uses a bright light to obtain a 3D image of the eye.

Remote Optical uses a special light-sensitive camera to take a series of photos of an eye and then send the data to an ophthalmologist.

"We're still working on our proprietary software and we're still patent pending," he said.

"But at this time, the goal of the project is to use light field data to mimic the 3D dynamics that come with the slit lamp exam."

Ambikkumar is 25 years old and used to be a software engineer before going to medical school.

He's now an ophthalmology resident physician at the University of Calgary.

Ambikkumar wanted to find a technological solution to help patients around the world that face barriers to accessing health care.

"(According to the Cost of Vision Loss and Blindness in Canada report), 1.2 million Canadians suffer from vision loss," he said.

"Out of these, there's a health-care burden of about $32.9 billion that is coming just from the members with vision loss. Now, what's interesting in that report was about 75 per cent of these patients had preventable causes for their vision loss."

Jeremy Zwaig is a co-founder and says Remote Optical will have the ability to help people in remote areas all over the world.

But he says at first the company will focus on ensuring all Canadians have equal access to care.

"Especially people who live in rural or remote communities," he said.

"Indigenous communities as well, they're really the people who are most affected at the moment and that are so close to home so it's really important that we take active steps to support those communities first and foremost."

Tyler Maddigan is the manager of marketing and communications for Enactus Canada, the country's largest post-secondary experiential learning platform focusing on creating student entrepreneurs and helping students across the country make a real impact through the use of social entrepreneurship and social enterprise.

A total of 12 finalists selected from across the country will pitch their businesses to a panel consisting of Canada’s top business executives at the Enactus Canada National Exposition from May 1 to 3, for the chance to be named Student Entrepreneur National Champion and win $10,000.

"We get more and more blown away by the quality of applicants we get," said Maddigan.

"Back in the day, it used to be a clothing business but today, you have people like Athy who are looking to do remote optometry and watching the cycle of innovation continue and continue and continue is honestly what really drives it for us.

"A lot of the student entrepreneurs are really, really good at what they do so I could pretty well guarantee you (the prize) money really helps them along in the process."

Ambikkumar is hopeful to have a working prototype by September 2023.

"We're currently in the step of making our prototype more applicable to the clinician," he said.

"We still just want to make sure we make it as smooth a transition as possible for ophthalmologists to shift from the slit lamp to this remote structure so while we have a working model, we're still making sure that we come up with the best product possible before we go to market."

Learn more about Remote Optical at www.remoteoptical.com.