Question 1: Does your venture primarily follow a for-profit or non-profit business model? Please explain. If your venture contains both for-profit and non-profit elements, please select the model that most accurately reflects your venture’s legal status. Education in Sight (EiS) follows a non-profit business model. Amy Hermalik (Corps '05), a Corporate Associate at Kirkland & Ellis LLP (the fifth largest law firm in the United States), has agreed to provide pro bono legal services to help incorporate our organization.

Question 2: Have you received any other external funding, consulting services, or institutionalized support for your venture? If so, please list all details, including the amount of funding, the nature of the services and/or support received, and the source of the funding and/or support.

* Individual Support Jason Jacobsohn, TFA Chicago resident social entrepreneurship expert, gave me advice on organizational structure and corporate partnership. Rish Khara, Director of Education Consulting at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, is advertising to Booth students about an opportunity to work with EiS as a part-time intern or summer associate. Amar Patel, Managing Director of Development at TFA Chicago, provided valuable advice on vision setting, fundraising strategies, and budget generation. Manchun Lu, Director of Alumni Impact at Teach For China, has met twice with our China operations team and is working on expanding the partnership between Teach For China and EiS. Donald Alfano, Data Visualization Association at Forrester Research, provided video editing and graphic design service to EiS. Laurel Capobianco, Partner at Global Bridges Network, has opened up her network and talked to potential donors on behalf of EiS. Kevin Hooper, Manager of Alumni Partnerships and Innovation at TFA Chicago, has been the most dedicated advisor to our organization since its inception. We meet every other week to discuss the progress of EiS. Kathy Qin, MBA Candidate at Harvard Business School, will join our future meetings to provide business perspective on our marketing and growth strategies. ** Starting next month, George Dong will be a member of inaugural Accelerate To One Day Chicago Social Entrepreneurship cohort. The program will be comprised of two components: the Regional Program and National Program. The Regional programming has been designed by Jason Jacobsohn, Chicago Director of the Founder Institute and Business Advisor with the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Initiative. This supplemental series of events will provide professional, real-world guidance to individual or small team entrepreneurs. He will also provide access to investors and fellow entrepreneurs representing organizations across various industries.The National programming will be the DesignCamp.

Question 3: Are you and/or your founding team currently working full-time on your venure or are your working on this venture part-time while serving in another professional role or attending graduate school? Please explain. George Dong is intending to work full-time on my venture without salary starting in January of 2013. Other team members are working part-time while serving in other professional roles, attending graduate school, or teaching in rural China. Recently, EiS leadership team has expanded from four team members initially to eight team members currently. Every new team member brings refreshing prospective, various expertise, and avid passion to a young organization. Here are the bios of EiS leadership team:

George Dong, Founder Full-time George Dong is the founder of Education in Sight and is passionate about providing access to quality education around the world. George holds a B.A. from the University of Michigan, where he was the commencement speaker for the class of 2009. After graduation, he joined Teach For America and taught two years in the inner city of Chicago. As a ninth grade English teacher, he was named Teacher of the Year at his school. He was a J. William Fulbright Scholar to China where he launched this eyeglasses initiative. A Fuzhou native, George enjoys basketball, buffet, and road trips through national parks with friends and family.

Andrew Shirman, Founder Andrew Shirman’s desire to achieve educational equality in China and around the world became a true passion during his two-year fellowship with Teach For China. While teaching 7th grade English at Pingcun Middle School, Andrew initiated programs for both remedial and gifted students to foster their English abilities outside regular class hours. In his second year, Andrew spearheaded the glasses initiative in Yunnan, developing the proposal and locating funding to launch the program. Prior to teaching in China, Andrew graduated from Boston College where he majored in philosophy and was captain of the school's fencing team.

John Kuo, Founder After graduating from Washington University in St. Louis, John spent two years as a Teach For China Fellow in Yongbao, Yunnan. As a Fellow, John taught 7th and 8th grade English. After noticing that many of his students were nearsighted, John located local partners to provide glasses and eye examinations for Yongbao, Pingcun and Luodong Middle Schools. John currently lives in Beijing.

Kristen Faiferlick, Vice-President of Growth and Development A Seattle native and Middlebury College graduate, Kristen has worked to provide underprivileged students a quality education in Latin America and later China as a Teach For China Fellow. In her second year as a Fellow, she partnered with Andrew and John to bring free glasses to students at her rural Chinese middle school. Still a member of the Teach For China family, Kristen currently works out of Beijing as a Development Manager on the Growth Strategy and Development Team. She is thrilled to continue working with Education in Sight to provide even more students with the glasses they need to see clearly and reach their academic potential.

Sara Shirman, Art Director Sara has always had a passion for design and how much power it can hold. During her undergraduate experience at the University of Wisconsin - Madison she received a well rounded education in Art and also found a passion for Environmental Studies. It became apparent to her that good design was the backbone for making a difference through her internship with the Clean Lakes Alliance of Dane County. By helping the organization with its design goals, she was able to see the impact that her creativity and passion could have in a non-profit environment. When not behind her macbook, Sara enjoys painting, crafting and spending time outdoors.

Gina Chen, US Team Director Gina graduated from Yale University with honors in political science. Throughout college, she designed curriculum and advocacy training workshops for immigrants in New Haven and Washington, D.C. After graduation, Gina received a Fulbright scholarship to conduct research on post-quake community rebuilding efforts in China. She is also a Gates Millennium Scholar, Yale Urban Fellow, and a Drum Major Institute for Public Policy Scholar. She enjoys painting, calligraphy, performing arts, traveling, and collecting historical folktales.

Emily Chen, US Team Director Emily Chen is excited to be part of the EiS team developing the U.S. side operations. Growing up in Los Angeles and attending public schools, Emily has always been interested in social and educational disparities. She attended Yale University where she majored in Economics and Religious Studies. While in college, Emily was involved in the Social Entrepreneurship Department of the Yale Entrepreneurship Society. Some of her favorite memories in college include volunteering at the New Haven with her sorority, Spring Break service trips to inner cities and rural areas of the U.S., brainstorming both serious an ridiculous solutions to social problems with friends, and spending her summers and year off hiking and eating her way through the better part of China. Emily is currently a medical school student at University of Michigan where she is hoping to use medicine as a mean to address social disparities.

Justin Halpern, Director of China Operations Justin Halpern graduated from George Washington University in 2011 with a degree in international affairs and economics. Three weeks later, he arrived in China and has been serving as a Teach For China Corps Member in Xingfu Elementary and Middle School ever since. Inspired by the success of Education In Sight's first year and determined by his own students' vision problems, he is honored to join the team and lead the EiS efforts in China's Yunnan Province.

4. What have you currently piloted, launched, or achieved with your idea/venture? Give us a sense of where your venture is in terms of programming, operations, and stakeholders served.

Recapping last year Education in Sight’s first pilot program was launched in the spring of 2012, in the low-income communities of rural Yunnan, China. There, spurred by the overwhelming need of the students to have corrected vision, we initiated a program to provide students with comprehensive vision examinations, free eyeglasses, and an education on proper eye care and the benefits of wearing glasses. Through our fundraising efforts we raised $3,000 USD, donated by Lucy Ball of the Lone Pine Foundation, to begin rolling out our program. With that sum of money we were able to hire a team of local eye doctors to test the vision of over 1,600 seventh and eighth grade students across three separate middle schools. Of the 1,600 students tested, 331 had poor vision and were provided glasses free of charge. Although there was little time between when glasses were distributed and when the semester ended, the effects were immediate and incredibly satisfying. In our executive team members’ own classrooms, students who once leaned forward and strained to see what was on the board or copied notes from classmates were could now see without strain . The same students could now clearly see the board along with the entire classroom environment and stay on task.

Partnerships Developed In the time since our project implementation, we have developed several key partnerships that will allow us to implement this project more effectively, and to a greater degree, in the future. Teach For America Teach for America is a non-profit whose mission is to eliminate educational inequity by enlisting the top emerging leaders from universities to teach in low-income communities. We have been receiving guidance from its leadership in the Chicago office and also have this opportunity at the Social Innovation Award through them. George Dong is an alumnus of this organization. KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) The Knowledge is Power Program is a nationwide network of college-preparatory schools place in under-resourced communities of the United States. Since expanding our scope to include the United States, we have formed partnerships with KIPP programs in Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Indianapolis, and Houston to work with them to deliver eye glasses to students in those communities. Teach For China Teach For China, a member of the Teach For All network, is a non-profit committed to closing the education gap in rural China by recruiting the US and China’s most promising future leaders. We are in close contact and receiving guidance from the leadership of Teach For China and are creating leadership opportunities for Fellows by enlisting them to run the Education in Sight program in their communities. Both Andrew Shirman and John Kuo are alumni of this Fellowship. REAP (Rural Education Action Project) The Rural Education Action Project is a research-based initiative run through Stanford University focused on forming insights around the quality of education in rural China and what can be done to improve it. One of REAP’s key research studies has been testing the academic benefits providing eyeglasses to students can have and we have been in contact with its key researcher to coordinate our efforts and share information and data collecting practices.

Stakeholders served In spring of 2012 we worked to implement a program providing eyeglasses to middle school students in our local communities in rural China. We served the entire seventh and eighth grade student population of three separate middle schools: Yongbao Middle School, Pingcun Middle School, and Luodang Middle School. All together 1,644 students had their vision tested, and 331 received eyeglasses for their poor vision. Teachers were also informed of the students receiving glasses to ensure they were being worn. The surrounding community was also served when students who received glasses also had an educational hand-out sent to their homes. This hand-out provided a brief education on proper eye care and when was appropriate to wear glasses. Most importantly, this document informed parents of the academic benefits improved vision could bring and dispelled common misconceptions in these communities that glasses accelerate the deterioration of vision. Future Implementation:

Describe our attack strategy and team structure for implementing this program in the coming year Further expounded upon in Question 6

New Operational Structure To ensure that the needs of our stakeholders are being met in both China and the United States, Education in Sight has recently altered its structure to create two regional teams that focus on the challenges and operations of their respective locations. Decisions in this new chain start at the top with our leadership team, and go down through our country directors to the managers in our Teach For China and KIPP program schools.

Question 5: Based on your experience in the United States, what do you think is the depth and breadth of this problem here?

The Problem Vision impairment can seriously hinder the learning process of children and impede children’s academic success. Nationally the percentage of eye defects among all school children is between 20-25%. 1 Vision disorders are the fourth most common disability in the United States and the most prevalent handicapping condition during childhood. In spite of the high prevalence of vision disorders in this population, studies show that only about 31% of children between ages 6 and 16 years of age are likely to have had a comprehensive eye and vision examination within the past year. In a study of 20-25% of children 5,851 children 9 to 15 years of age, nearly 20 have eye related percent needed glasses but only 10 percent of problems that group already had them. Thus, 90 percent of those children requiring prescription eyeglasses were not wearing them.2 Why so few children Vision problems are receive professional eye care is unknown. Possible the fourth most explanations include the lack of access to common disability pediatricians, other primary care physicians, or in the U.S. school screenings, many uninsured parents’ or caregivers’ inability to pay for the needed services, and parents' or caregivers’ lack of knowledge that 90% of students early professional eye care is needed to prevent who need eyeglasses are not unnecessary loss of vision as well as to improve wearing them educational readiness.3 EiS aims to address these problems by providing access and increasing awareness about taking care of one’s vision. According to the National Eye Institute, part of the National Institute of Health, one of the most prevalent vision problems, myopia or nearsightedness, is found in 2% of all students entering first grade and 15% of students entering high school. For Chicago Public Schools, this figure correlates to 4,800 students in grades one through eight and 17,250 high school students who may not be able to see the board at the front of the classroom without vision correction.4 1

Illinois Department of Public Health, Vision Screening Manual; July 2001; p. 1. Pizzarello L, Tilp M, Tiezzi L, et al. A new school-based program to provide glasses: Childsight. 3 American Foundation for Vision Awareness. Children’s vision and literacy campaign position paper. 4 Illinois College of Optometry, “Illinois Eye Institute Starts Eye Clinic at Chicago Public Schools” http://finance.paidcontent.org/paidcontent/news/read?GUID=16487007 2

Lack of Access

Financial Costs

Students lack glasses

Lack of resources

Lack of knowledge

Vision and Closing the Achievement Gap In the United States, there are currently 8.8 million children ages 5 to 17 that live under the federal poverty level and approximately 3.52 million of them need prescription glasses.5 Studies suggest that children living in poor urban environments have twice the normal rate of vision problems.6 Undetected vision problems disproportionately affect children and students from low-income families. In addition, those who cannot afford glasses are often those who need them most: low income students who could have a brighter future with a better education with glasses.

5

National Center for Children in Poverty Statistics, http://www.nccp.org/publications/pub_678.html. Ethan D., Basch CE. “Promoting Healthy Vision in Students: Progress and Challenges in Policy, Programs, Research.” Columbia University. Teachers College, Department of Health and Behavioral Sciences. 6

3.52 million children living below the FPL need glasses

The Cycle of Educational Disparities Without glasses, children from lowincome families underperform

Children from lowincome families are more likely to have visual impairment

Worldwide, a report by the World Bank suggests that 10% of all school children in developing nations have vision problems such as myopia and hypermyopia, which accounts for 97% of the vision problems among these children.7 Nearly all vision problems can be corrected with a pair of properly fitted eyeglasses. However, most children with who need glasses in low-income countries do not have them. Providing equal access to eye examinations and vision correction is not only crucial to the physical health of children in school at a time in which the rigors of academic studies may place the most demand and stress on the students’ vision, but vision correction also translates to improved academic performance. In a study conducted at Stanford University, researchers found that providing students eyeglasses for students with poor vision could improve their academic performance by 10-20%, which translated to the improvement of their average grades by half a letter grade or more by wearing glasses in the classroom.8 The study also found students with corrected eyesight are also less likely to drop out of school than those without corrected vision. Good education for children means more than good schools, good teachers, and good parents. Good education also requires good vision. The costs brought about by the interrelationships between vision problems, learning difficulties, and undetected vision problems are of great concern. Vision problems can directly hinder and interfere with children’s abilities to perform to their potential. When children fail to progress in school, the cost to the individual and society can be substantial.9 A barrier to better education could be easily solved by providing eye exams and eye glasses. It is a right of all children to have access to proper eye care and vision correction. EiS aims to address this problem in an innovative and sustainable way.

7

Bundy, Donald, Arun Joshi, Megan Rowlands and Yung-Ting Kung. (2003) “EnVISIONing Education in Low Income Countries.” The World Bank. Washington, D.C. 8 Glewwe and Zhao “The Impact of Eyeglasses on the Academic Performance of Primary School Students: Evidence from a Randomized Trial in Rural China” REAP Project. “Seeing is Learning-Evaluating the Impact of Eye Care Delivery on Eyeglass Utilization and School Performance in Shaanxi and Gansu’s Rural Communities”. The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center 9 Grunning, OD, FCOVD, FAAP. Optometric Management; “Pre-school screenings: Are they enough.” July 2001; Page 72.

6. If you were to launch in the United States, what aspects of your business model would you change (such as vision testing, delivery, fundraising, revenue generation, etc.)? What existing infrastructure could you leverage?

Business Model: Connecting EiS with students in the U.S In the United States, EiS will use existing networks of teachers in KIPP, TFA, and other organizations to reach students in need. We are currently starting our first project with KIPP by providing approximately 1590 (footnote) glasses for six KIPP Academy. EiS will provide the platform and resources for teachers all across the nation to provide glasses for their classrooms or even their entire school.

Teachers EiS will leverage the existing network of passionate teachers across the nation to connect to their students. Teachers will become an invaluable resource for EiS because they are the individuals who know their students the best. EiS will market itself as a resource to these teachers and partner with them by providing vision screening resources, finding a local volunteer optometrist, and ultimately providing custom-made glasses for their students. Teachers need only to initiate by seeking out EiS and working with an EiS representative to bring eyeglasses and better vision to their classroom or school.

Platform EiS will aim to be a user-friendly platform for teachers who want to provide eyeglasses for students in their class. EiS understands that teachers are short on time and thus would benefit from an organization that has worked with many other schools and teachers in bringing eyeglasses for students. EiS will essentially become an "expert consultant" in bringing eyeglasses to students as it works with individuals schools and teachers. As we expand and have more experience with schools across the nation and make partnerships with optometrists willing to partner with us, we will become more efficient and better at providing eye care for students who need it the most.

EiS Resource Center Resources for teachers- EiS will provide the materials for a teacher who wants to conduct a preliminary vision screening for the class. EiS is committed to working with teachers every step of the way from planning the screening to delivery of glasses. Schedule an optometrist- EiS will be responsible for contacting an optometrist in the local area and scheduling an appropriate time for the optometrist to visit the school. If the optometrist cannot visit the school, EiS may partner with the teacher or school in transporting students to the optometrist for a half day/full day screening. The optometrist will be responsible for prescribing glasses for the students. EiS will be responsible for providing local optometrists will forms to fill out for each student for his or her prescription, glasses style, and size. Submit Eyeglass Order- After the local optometrist has determined necessary prescriptions for each student, the teacher can simply submit the custom orders to EiS. EiS will then be responsible for ordering the glasses and delivering them to the teacher who will dispense them to the students.

EiS resources for teachers to easily access and use

Optometrist Partnerships EiS is looking forward to working with volunteer optometrists throughout the nation who would like to join our network. During the first year of operation, EiS will begin the process of searching for optometrists who are willing to volunteer one day of the year to screen schoolchildren. In order to streamline the process, EiS is planning to have an Annual Month of Vision Screening in the beginning of each school year. Annual screenings across the nation will allow EiS to prepare for this large event during the earlier part of the year and will allow optometrists in the nation to budget and plan for a certain time period to volunteer one or a few days to screen school students. EiS will also be responsible for appreciating optometrists who volunteer their time by encouraging classrooms to write thank you notes for optometrists. In order to measure our impact and growth, we will partner with optometrists and teachers to provide feedback on students’ performances in order to obtain retrospective and prospective data to follow students’ performance. We hope that as a non-profit, we can strive to maintain the highest level of impact, efficiency, and quality in our mission and work.

Delivery For our first year of operation in the U.S., EiS will be using a portion of the grant money and in-kind donations to provide U.S. students with glasses. Because of our partnership with local Chinese eyeglasses suppliers, we are able to leverage this supply chain and provide high quality and cost effective glasses for KIPP schoolchildren if we are not able to provide enough glasses from in-kind donations from U.S. corporations and organizations. However, during our first year, we plan to reach out to donors and partners to establish long-lasting relationships to provide eyeglasses.

Pen-pal program At the core of EiS is a firm commitment to education. EiS is not only an organization that provides glasses to students, but it is an organization that ultimately wants to open new opportunities for the students it serves. EiS is currently working with students in China and the U.S. and is staffed by a team of American, Chinese, and Chinese-American individuals. We firmly believe in the exchange of cultures and ideas between different countries and our mission is to also promote cultural exchange for education opportunities. EiS aims to provide not only eye glasses and corrected vision to students but also

opportunities to see the world and learn about different cultures through person-to-person contacts as a part of our pen-pal program. With the pairs of glasses the students receive in either the United States or China, students will be matched with their EiS peers across the globe. Through letter writing, video conferencing, and gift-bag exchanges, young leaders from U.S. and China will increase mutual understanding and foster enduring friendship between the two nations. In addition, this pen-pal program can be easily implemented because EiS will connect Teach For America/KIPP teachers will Teach For China teachers. Besides letter writing, dedicated and talented educators can create class Skype chat, interactive cultural learning lessons, and much more.

Revenue Generation Eis plans to operate as a non-profit organization. We plan to apply every year to Social Enterprise Grants to generate a steady stream of revenue. In addition, EiS will have an Annual Gala and Auction which will happen in both the United States and China. The Annual Gala will highlight our organization’s impact in the lives of the children in their respective countries and communities. Selected students from different schools who have benefited from Education in Sight’s eye-care services will also be invited to the gala as honorary guests, as the gala will feature the students in one of its programs for the night. Furthermore, the gala provides a venue for the showcasing of the students’ creative work as part of Education in Sight’s Pen Pal Program. Different art crafts from students of both countries will be available at the annual gala’s silent auction component. Invitations to guests of the gala will include corporate sponsors, partners, key supporters, and individuals from both the non-profit and educational world, among many others. Each year’s gala will also feature one or two prominent honorary guests whose work have inspired and transformed education and international understanding. Ticket sales from the gala, revenue from the silent auction, as well as contribution pledges made at the gala will coalesce into one of Education in Sight’s key fundraising efforts of the year. A combination of different revenue streams should be sufficient as EiS grows and hires staff to maintain and grow its operations.

Donors and partnerships

Question 7: What would you use the award funding for? Please be specific. Beyond helping us achieve a sustainable organization, we see the Social Innovation Award funding expanding our organization in three keys ways that would otherwise be beyond our reach: Growing Our Impact in the U.S. •The financial support from TFA’s Social Innovation Award will be vital to our ambitious growth plan in the U.S. First, we will serve every student who needs eyeglasses in five KIPP regions (Houston, Central Ohio, Minnesota, Indianapolis, rural NC) that are currently partnering with EiS. In three years, our goal is to increase the number of students impacted from 1,590 (year 1) to 13,400 (year 2). This funding will allow us to purchase eyeglasses, recruit volunteer optometrists, and deliver our service effectively. In addition, we aim to grow our annual budget and create an enduring institution. Bringing on Full-time Staff •With the award funding, EiS will be able conduct recruitment efforts to find qualified and experienced personnel who can help coordinate the various operations of our organization more efficiently. The hired staff member will bring in a rich repertoire of experience from operational and organizational development in the non-profit sector. In addition, he or she can provide valuable insights and advice to inform the work of the entire team from the vantage point of a full-time member of the team as compared to part-time staff and volunteers.

Expanding Our Fundraising Efforts (Gala event) •With the financial support of the Social Innovation Award, EiS has its eyes set on the future where it can host a donor event, such as a fundraising gala. Here, donor contacts can be further developed, and we can network to continue expanding our donor base. The inspiration for this event comes from a recently held Hong Kong gala event hosted by our close partner, Teach For China, where they raised 1.2 million dollars in funding.