Farnborough International Airshow 2022 partners with Orbis UK, the sight loss charity

Farnborough International Airshow (FIA) is proud to announce that its official charity partner for 2022 is Orbis UK, the international sight loss charity. The Farnborough International Airshow (FIA2022) runs from the 18-22 July and brings together leading innovators across industries including aerospace and aviation.

Globally 1.1 billion people live with sight loss and blindness, and 90% of it is avoidable.  Orbis UK fights avoidable sight loss and blindness through hospital-based programmes and on board the Orbis Flying Eye Hospital, a state-of-the-art ophthalmic training hospital on board an MD-10 aircraft in low-to-middle countries where most people with avoidable blindness live.

This year marks 40 years since the Orbis Flying Eye Hospital first took flight in 1982. Over the past four decades, Orbis’ leading experts and volunteers in ophthalmic care have trained the next generation of ophthalmologists, nurses, anaesthetists, and eye health workers. Decades on, and millions of people’s sight has been restored, enabling children to return to school and adults to retain their livelihoods.

Innovation, sustainability and workforce are three key themes at FIA2022, and we embrace all of these to deliver our sight-saving work.

We’ll showcase leading surgical simulation technology by FundamentalVR, used to train surgeons across the world, alongside Cybersight, Orbis’ award-winning telemedicine platform. Thanks to Cybersight we are now training more people in more places than ever before. By the end of 2021, Orbis had more than 56,000 registered Cybersight users across more than 200 countries and regions.

Thanks to FundamentalVR, we will demo our surgical simulation technology at the Orbis UK stand 3926 in Hall 3 on Monday 18 July 10am – 4pm and Tuesday 19 July 9am – 5.30pm. Delegates from aviation and aerospace at FIA2022 can try their hand on the simulator to understand Orbis’ use of cutting-edge technology is building skills in eye care worldwide.

Colman Cawe, Director of Fundraising and Communications at Orbis UK, said: “Being the official charity partner for Farnborough International Airshow (FIA) gives Orbis an incredible opportunity to raise awareness of our work on this global platform. FIA’s ability to convene industry is well known, and we are thrilled they are lending their support to our campaign to bring the Flying Eye Hospital back to the skies, to deliver in-person sight-saving training and care once more.”

“We’d like to thank FIA2022 for this chance to raise £40,000 from the Airshow community, and FundamentalVR for enabling us to showcase our industry-leading surgery simulator on our stand.”

Also in attedance at the Orbis stand is Captain Gary Dyson, Chief Pilot for the Orbis Flying Eye Hospital. Gary, who has volunteered with Orbis for the past twenty years, said:

“In 1982 Orbis became the first organisation to put an eye hospital on a plane. It was an audacious idea to fight the injustice of avoidable blindness around the world. Forty years on, we need your donations to help us return to the skies for the first time since the pandemic prevented us from flying.”

“Seeing people having their sight restored is a privilege. Our aircraft traines eye care teams across the world to save and restore sight, and we’d love you to be part of our next success story.”

In the past four decades, Orbis has led the way with workforce training, supported the establishment and improvement of 76 paediatric eye care centres, 340 dedicated eye care hospitals, 157 vision centres, 33 energy efficient green vision centres and treated millions of people and trained thousands of medics in eye health care worldwide.

We won’t rest until there are trained eye health professionals accessible everywhere, for everyone, so no one has to experience the consequences of avoidable blindness.

To find out more about Orbis UK visit www.orbis.org.uk/FIA22