Tej Kohli and Sanduk Ruit are firmly united in their new joint fight to cure blindness, with new mission to screen 1,000,000 and cure 300,000 by 2026. In March 2021 the new Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation conducted its first high volume cataract outreach surgeries in the highly symbolic location of Lumbini in Nepal, the birthplace of Buddha, where the not-for-profit organisation screened 900 patients and cured 312 of cataract blindness during a four-day mission. A second surgical camp in Solukhumbu, in the foothills of Mount Everest, occurred just a few days after this video was filmed and completed surgeries so that a further 171 people were cured of blindness. For more information visit www.tejkohlifoundation.com

Just next to Nepal's Mayadevi temple, known as where Buddha was born more than 2,600 years ago, hundreds of people wait outside a makeshift hospital hoping their fading eyesight will be restored by eye surgeon Dr. Sanduk Ruit. (April 8) Subscribe for more Breaking News: http://smarturl.it/AssociatedPress Website: https://apnews.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP Facebook: https://facebook.com/APNews Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/ ​ You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/c267e794193043b9908775b127a28763

In episode three of Gracie' Story, aspiring actress Gracie McGonigal receives her new 3D printed bionic arm from Tej Kohli at the Tej Kohli Foundation. Tej Kohli is a technologist and investor who backs ventures in the fields of artificial intelligence, robotics and biotechnology. Tej Kohli is the owner of the Zibel Real Estate portfolio and of e-commerce platforms including dynacart. Tej Kohli is engaged in rebuilding people and communities through the not-for-profit Tej Kohli Foundation. Learn more at www.TejKohliFoundation.com and www.TejKohli.com

Holiday Hunger has become even more visible and regrettably even more pervasive in the aftermath of the Coronavirus lockdown in the UK. Solving the problem of hunger amongst families with small children will require coordinated and sustainable efforts across all sectors. The Tej Kohli Foundation operates a number of 'Food Support' programmes in the UK, including the YouCubeBox.com project. This BBC News report visits the YouCube project that is being delivered with Southall Community Alliance as well as speaking to one of the families that has received YouCube.

Tej Kohli, a London-based entrepreneur and philanthropist, has pledged $2 million to Massachusetts Eye and Ear in Boston to fund innovation in research to cure corneal blindness, including the development of promising biotechnology solutions. The move reflects Kohli’s belief in the promise of new technologies to build a better world as he seeks to find a solution to eliminating avoidable corneal blindness that is not dependent on transplantation. Kohli has already made substantial progress in his global mission to eradicate avoidable corneal blindness by 2030. The philanthropic Tej Kohli Cornea Institute in Hyderabad is an eminent institution for corneal research and expertise. Between 2016 and 2018 the institute saw 167,321 outpatient visits, collected 26,269 donor corneas, utilized 15,784 cornea and completed 31,511 surgical procedures. 285 million people in the world have a visual impairment and 39 million people are blind, according to the World Health Organization. Blindness is heavily impacted by poverty, with up to 14 of the 39 million living in India. Yet a good proportion of blindness, including 75% of corneal disease, is curable. 12.7 million of the world’s blind are waiting for cornea transplants, including six million in India, and only one in seventy of those on waiting lists receive a corneal transplant each year. Solving the problem of corneal blindness will require an affordable non-surgical solution. Massachusetts Eye and Ear (MEE) is a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School (HMS) and its Department of Ophthalmology is the world’s largest vision research and clinical enterprise. Between 2016 and 2018, MEE ophthalmologists conducted 521,805 patient visits and performed 101,941 ophthalmic surgeries and procedures. A long-time leader in research and clinical care for retinal disease, MEE performed the first FDA-approved gene therapy for an inherited disease in March 2018. Its clinician scientists are currently conducting more than 110 clinical studies and trials, in order to investigate new therapies across a broad array of vision disease and disorders. The Tej Kohli Cornea Program at MEE will accelerate innovative and collaborative research to achieve unprecedented breakthroughs in corneal disease. The program will pursue pathways to cure corneal blindness through prevention and treatment, including cutting-edge molecular technology for rapid diagnosis and early detection of corneal infection and GelCORE, an adhesive biomaterial for replacing corneal tissue. The clinician/scientists who will lead this work are: • Reza Dana, MD, PhD, MSc, an internationally recognized expert in corneal disorders and ocular inflammation. Dr. Dana holds the Claes H. Dohlman Professorship in Ophthalmology at HMS and is director of the cornea service at the MEE. • Michael Gilmore, PhD, is the founder and principal investigator of the Harvard-wide Program on Antibiotic Resistance. Dr. Gilmore holds the Sir William Osler Professorship in Ophthalmology at HMS. • James Chodosh, MD, MPH, holds the David G. Cogan Professorship in Ophthalmology in the field of Cornea and External Disease and is an associate director of the Infectious Disease Institute in the Department of Ophthalmology at HMS. The work of these investigators follows a tradition of pioneering innovations in corneal and immunology research at MEE. Claes H. Dohlman, MD invented the Boston Keratoprosthesis (B-KPro), the most popular artificial cornea in the world and Dr. Chodosh has expanded its scope, restoring vision to those with blinding corneal disease and injury. Dr. Gilmore published the definitive research on “super bugs” discovering the mechanism used by microorganisms to acquire multidrug resistance. Last March, Dr. Dana led a pre-clinical study published in Science Advances – showing early indications that GelCORE may be able to seal cuts or ulcers on the cornea and then encourage the regeneration of corneal tissue. Tej Kohli’s goal of curing corneal blindness is being pursued through philanthropy, including the $2 million donation to MEE, as well as through business ventures and investments in technology. Kohli recently acquired a proprietary regenerative biotechnology that is currently in clinical trials. If successful as an off-the-shelf solution, Kohli believes that this regenerative biotechnology could be immediately relevant to up to one third of the 12.7 million who are currently waiting for corneal transplants world-wide.

Funded by Wendy and Tej Kohli, the Tej Kohli Foundation is a non-profit organisation that was started in 2005 with the initial goal of helping disadvantaged children break free from poverty. Today the Tej Kohli Foundation is a multidisciplinary global hub for humanitarian technologists who are developing solutions to major global health challenges whilst also making direct interventions that transform individual lives around the world. The Tej Kohli Foundation is best known for it's mission to eradicate corneal blindness worldwide by 2035. Visual impairment is a public health problem of global proportions. More than two hundred and eighty-five million people worldwide have some form of visual impairment. Thirty-nine million of them are blind. Ninety percent of those affected by blindness and severe visual impairment live in the poorest countries in the world. Fourteen million live in India alone. Yet a good proportion of worldwide blindness, including 75% of corneal disease, is curable. Access to affordable treatment can only be achieved through systemic long-term efforts to create widespread availability of high quality eye care facilities that are delivered by people who have the resources, technical skills and compassion to handle diverse population segments. Patients of the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute receive completely free treatment. In the last two years the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute has hosted more than one hundred and sixty-seven thousand outpatient visits, collected twenty-six thousand donor cornea and utilized nearly sixteen thousand corneas for transplants. The Institute undertook more than thirty-one thousand surgical procedures, delivered over seven hundred presentations, published one hundred and forty-eight publications and trained more than one hundred and twenty clinicians. Blindness is heavily impacted by poverty. Between six and seven million of the twelve million people worldwide who are currently waiting for Cornea transplants live in India. Whilst the average age of a patient needing a corneal transplant in Canada is seventy-five, in India the average age is just sixteen years old, which severely impacts life prospects and outcomes. By also taking education, treatment and preventative medicine directly to the poorer rural areas where sixty-six per cent of Indians live, the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute is able to additionally target these high-impact populations that are living with curable corneal blindness. At just one rural village location that is not reached by any charities or NGOs, the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute recently completed more than two thousand Cornea transplants during a single year. Preventing and controlling and eliminating corneal blindness is also a global objective. Achieving this mission will require a scalable and affordable solution for the masses, and through the acquisition of proprietary new biotechnologies, philanthropist Tej Kohli is dedicated to making this a reality. Through international collaboration between leading clinicians, technology pioneers and global hubs of excellence such as the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute, it is a now a visible reality that by 2030 avoidable corneal blindness could be controlled, reduced and then eradicated worldwide.

The Tej Kohli Foundation's Future Bionics program funds bionic arms for British children from Bristol-based robotics pioneer Open Bionics. Open Bionics is building and developing the next generation of low-cost bionic limbs that turn disabilities into superpowers. The program highlights how technology can substantially improve the lives and confidence of young people living with disabilities. It aims to inspire and influence others to follow this lead. The Open Bionics ‘Hero Arm’, which can be controlled with the electrical signals generated by a user’s muscles, has superior multi-grip functionality that enables users to perform many more everyday activities compared to traditional prosthetics. The enhanced ability of the user to be able to personalise their 3D-printed Open Bionics Hero Arm is also a huge boost to mental well-being and to perceived social acceptance.

​@TejKohliFoundation is building an interdisciplinary hub of innovation for the development of scientific and technological solutions that can eliminate blindness in poor communities worldwide. Interdisciplinary innovation is at the heart of the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute, and our mission is a world where nobody is blind because they cannot afford or access treatment. As part of this mission, we have made annual grant funding available to scientific and technological projects based in the United Kingdom. To be eligible for a grant a project must be able to demonstrate a clear path toward alleviating corneal blindness in the poor countries that are home to 90% of those living with blindness and severe visual impairment. Eligible projects must also have a current or prior attachment to an established and recognised UK institution such as a university, hospital or institute; or have access to the infrastructure and resources of a large and established organisation. Projects should be seeking to use technology, science, research or some other novel innovation or application. BACKGROUND The Tej Kohli Cornea Institute was established in 2015 at the LV Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad, a World Health Organization collaborating centre that is a global leader in research and development, preventative medicine and Corneal transplants. Between 2016 and 2019 the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute at LV Prasad welcomed 223,404 outpatients, completed 43,255 surgical procedures, collected 38,225 donor corneas into its eye bank, utilized 22,176 donor corneas, trained 152 clinicians, published 202 paper and gave 892 educational presentations. In 2019 alone, 5,736 patients were cured of blindness. Stories of the many patients whose lives were transformed thanks to free treatment at the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute can be watched on the @TejKohliFoundation YouTube channel. This incarnation of the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute was uniquely adept at solving the problems of reaching people living with blindness or visual impairment in the hard-to-reach rural areas where 66% of Indians live. But after making tens of thousands of treatment interventions to end the poverty blindness in India, from 2020 the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute is refocusing its efforts on the development of an affordable, accessible and scalable solution to corneal blindness. Whilst direct interventions can change lives by taking existing treatments and cures into underserved communities, in order to eradicate corneal blindness worldwide will require new treatments and solutions derived from scientific and technological innovations. By evolving into a multidisciplinary global hub for innovation, the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute mission is a world where nobody is blind because they cannot afford or access treatment. Find out more at www.tejkohlifoundation.com

Joan W. Miller, MD is Professor and Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School and Chief of Ophthalmology at Massachusetts Eye & Ear, Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The Tej Kohli Cornea Program at Massachusetts Eye & Ear, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, aims to accelerate innovative and collaborative research to achieve unprecedented breakthroughs in corneal disease. The program pursues pathways to cure corneal blindness through prevention and treatment, including cutting-edge molecular technology for rapid diagnosis and early detection of corneal infection and GelCORE, an adhesive biomaterial for replacing corneal tissue. Massachusetts Eye and Ear (MEE) is a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School (HMS) and its Department of Ophthalmology is the world’s largest vision research and clinical enterprise. Between 2016 and 2018, MEE ophthalmologists conducted 521,805 patient visits and performed 101,941 ophthalmic surgeries and procedures. A long-time leader in research and clinical care for retinal disease, MEE performed the first FDA-approved gene therapy for an inherited disease in March 2018. Its clinician scientists are currently conducting more than 110 clinical studies and trials, in order to investigate new therapies across a broad array of vision disease and disorders.

Reza Dana, MD, PhD, MSc, is an internationally recognized expert in corneal disorders and ocular inflammation. Dr. Dana holds the Claes H. Dohlman Professorship in Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School and is director of the cornea service at the Mass Eye and Ear. The Tej Kohli Cornea Program at Massachusetts Eye & Ear, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, aims to accelerate innovative and collaborative research to achieve unprecedented breakthroughs in corneal disease. The program pursues pathways to cure corneal blindness through prevention and treatment, including cutting-edge molecular technology for rapid diagnosis and early detection of corneal infection and GelCORE, an adhesive biomaterial for replacing corneal tissue. Massachusetts Eye and Ear (MEE) is a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School (HMS) and its Department of Ophthalmology is the world’s largest vision research and clinical enterprise. Between 2016 and 2018, MEE ophthalmologists conducted 521,805 patient visits and performed 101,941 ophthalmic surgeries and procedures. A long-time leader in research and clinical care for retinal disease, MEE performed the first FDA-approved gene therapy for an inherited disease in March 2018. Its clinician scientists are currently conducting more than 110 clinical studies and trials, in order to investigate new therapies across a broad array of vision disease and disorders.

James Chodosh, MD, MPH, holds the David G. Cogan Professorship in Ophthalmology in the field of Cornea and External Disease and is an associate director of the Infectious Disease Institute in the Department of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. The Tej Kohli Cornea Program at Massachusetts Eye & Ear, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, aims to accelerate innovative and collaborative research to achieve unprecedented breakthroughs in corneal disease. The program pursues pathways to cure corneal blindness through prevention and treatment, including cutting-edge molecular technology for rapid diagnosis and early detection of corneal infection and GelCORE, an adhesive biomaterial for replacing corneal tissue. Massachusetts Eye and Ear (MEE) is a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School (HMS) and its Department of Ophthalmology is the world’s largest vision research and clinical enterprise. Between 2016 and 2018, MEE ophthalmologists conducted 521,805 patient visits and performed 101,941 ophthalmic surgeries and procedures. A long-time leader in research and clinical care for retinal disease, MEE performed the first FDA-approved gene therapy for an inherited disease in March 2018. Its clinician scientists are currently conducting more than 110 clinical studies and trials, in order to investigate new therapies across a broad array of vision disease and disorders.

Michael Gilmore, PhD, is the founder and principal investigator of the Harvard-wide Program on Antibiotic Resistance. Dr. Gilmore holds the Sir William Osler Professorship in Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. The Tej Kohli Cornea Program at Massachusetts Eye & Ear, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, aims to accelerate innovative and collaborative research to achieve unprecedented breakthroughs in corneal disease. The program pursues pathways to cure corneal blindness through prevention and treatment, including cutting-edge molecular technology for rapid diagnosis and early detection of corneal infection and GelCORE, an adhesive biomaterial for replacing corneal tissue. Massachusetts Eye and Ear (MEE) is a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School (HMS) and its Department of Ophthalmology is the world’s largest vision research and clinical enterprise. Between 2016 and 2018, MEE ophthalmologists conducted 521,805 patient visits and performed 101,941 ophthalmic surgeries and procedures. A long-time leader in research and clinical care for retinal disease, MEE performed the first FDA-approved gene therapy for an inherited disease in March 2018. Its clinician scientists are currently conducting more than 110 clinical studies and trials, in order to investigate new therapies across a broad array of vision disease and disorders.

The Tej Kohli Foundation, in collaboration with celebrated independent Directors Fred Burns and Daniel Grasskamp, presents ‘Father Will I See Again?’ an independent documentary short about a teenage brother and sister from a modest Muslim family, who are both battling a rare genetic condition that causes blindness. Winner of the Platinum Award at the Independent Shorts Awards and part of the Official Selection at the 2020 Manchester Film Festival, 'Father Will I See Again?' follows the story of siblings Ameer (14) and Sadiya (12) Hamza, who live in Jeedimetla, a poor urban community on the outskirts of Hyderabad in India. The brother and sister both suffer with Xeroderma pigmentosum (XP), a rare genetic condition that makes them highly sensitive to sunlight and which is slowly robbing them of their eyesight. Ameer and Sadiya dream of becoming a pilot and a doctor, but have been forced to stop attending school because of their declining eyesight. Join them as they grab a lifeline that could restore their dreams: a life-changing treatment offered by The Tej Kohli Foundation. ‘Father Will I See Again?’ brings a new story into the light and shows that the real tragedy of curable blindness is not the needless darkness or the isolation. It’s that when a young person is deprived of their vision, they are also deprived of their hopes, their dreams and their prospects. Ameer and Sadiya are in many ways typical of most young teenagers and they have many friends. Ameer loves cricket and playing with smartphones. He is an extrovert who avoids doing household chores and dreams of one day becoming a pilot. Younger sister Sadiya is quiet and sensitive and prefers to stay inside to play with her dolls and to practice reading. The family lives in a two-bedroom flat with their mother and father, as well as their elder brother Irshad and elder sister Shazia. The local urban community in Jeedimetla is mostly comprised of families from poorer backgrounds who are working and aspiring towards the lower middle classes of India. A typical day for the Hamza family starts early, especially during Ramadan, when the family rises early for Sehri before fasting through the day until Iftar and then dinner at around 18:45. After dinner the family might typically be found huddled around their television. Life is not easy for a family with two children living with XP. Paying for treatments and buying medicines is expensive. A few years ago their father had to sell all of their mother’s jewellery to pay for treatment for Ameer and Sadiya. A false ceiling contractor by trade, work is not regular for their father, and so the family has little reliable income and security. It was not until they discovered the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute that Ameer and Sadiya were handed a lifeline: the opportunity for life-changing cornea transplant operations funded by the Tej Kohli Foundation. Despite both living with challenging symptoms of XP and deteriorating eyesight , Ameer and Sadiya have a relationship that is typical of any teenage brothers and sisters. They fight a lot, but also have a strong bond, and Ameer is very protective of Sadiya. Due to their condition, they are mostly unable to leave the house, so they often play together inside. Sadiya is the sensible one: she follows all instructions precisely and is very careful to ensure that her skin isn’t affected by the sun and that her eyes don’t suffer. Ameer by contrast is cheeky and naughty, and often ignores his parents’ warnings and goes outside unprotected. Sadiya feels great sadness about her XP. She wants to be ‘normal’, but knows that she is not like most other young girls. Even Ameer questions if he will ever get better, and although he is active, there are moments when he questions why he too is not like other boys his age. Not being able to play in the sun also creates a lot of restrictions, compounded by the prejudice that Ameer and Sadiya face as a consequence of their physical appearance. They used to enjoy going to school, where their classmates were extremely supportive, but they stopped attending school because their deteriorating eyesight made it impossible to learn in a classroom. Tej Kohli Cornea Institute data suggests a prevalence in India of between 1 and 27 people in every 10,000 of population, but there is underreporting because of a lack of awareness. There is also a social stigma attached to skin problems in India, and being a sunny tropical country, the high degree of sun exposure makes the visual symptoms of XP more pervasive and aggravates the degradation of ocular problems that lead to blindness. Many still believe the superstitions that skin conditions are a curse and don’t seek medical help. 'Father Will I See Again? was commissioned in 2019 by the Tej Kohli Foundation as part of a strategy to use social impact entertainment to raise awareness of underreported issues amongst influencer audiences worldwide.

Between 2015 and 2019 the Tej Kohli Foundation made significant inroads into making direct interventions to close the treatment gap that causes needless corneal blindness in poor and developing countries. Worldwide 39 million people suffer from blindness. 90% of them live in the world’s poorest communities and 12 million of them live in India. As part of the Tej Kohli 'Rebuilding You' mission to rebuild people and communities around the world, the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute in India delivered more than 40,000 surgical procedures. But to be able to offer free corneal transplants to those in need requires a sustainable supply of cornea from donors. Creating the essential eye bank infrastructure is a huge undertaking. To obtain donor cornea, counsellors are notified when a death occurs at a hospital, and trained volunteer quickly attend to engage with the family and, with consent, to recover the cornea. The most successful cornea recovery programs have their counsellors posted at key hospital sites 24 hours a day seven days a week to support families and recover cornea. In this four-part series which was produced by local production teams in India, we look at how eye bank infrastructure enables families who have lost a loved one to give new life to others. Find out more at www.TejKohliFoundation.com and www.TejKohli.com

A story about changing the lives of seven brothers and sisters who were each living with the same visual impairment until they received corneal transplants from the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute at LV Prasad.

Shanmukhapriya was six years when she first attended the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute with vision problems. When she was nine years old she received a collagen cross linking procedure to stabilise her cornea and stop it from getting worse. Then when she was ten years old she received a corneal transplant in her right eye. Her sight has improved a lot and after her transplant she will grow into a normal teenager with normal vision.

Keerthana and her mother received free treatment at the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute. They first came to the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute at the LV Prasad Hospital when Keerthana was just six years old. She has a syndrome called Brittle Cornea Syndrome which means that every small action could damage her eyes. Her right eye was too damaged for treatment, but a strengthening procedure was carried out on her left eye, where a new cornea was put in on top of her existing cornea. Two years later, she can see almost as well as anyone else can even without wearing glasses.

Bhajrang sustained a severe chemical injury to both of his eyes whilst working in a factory. He received stem cell therapy and corneal transplantation at the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute, ad ha snow recovered well. His vision is so good that he has been able to return to work, and is looking forward to being able to support his three daughters.