Ray Avery: Medical Innovation & Applied Knowledge
Ray Avery speaks about his innovation from an Academic Scientist to an Applied Scientist and his journey along that road to make a difference in the world. New Zealand innovators don’t get a mention on the list of the World’s Most Innovative Nations but he maintains that when New Zealanders can see something then they can make something of it. That he says, is what New Zealanders are good at.
ABOUT TEDx
TEDx was created in the spirit of TED’s mission, ‘ideas worth spreading’. The programme is designed to give communities, organisations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level.
ABOUT Ray Avery
“Sir Ray Avery, 2010 New Zealander of the Year, is an inventor, a scientist, and an all-around humanitarian. He is the founder and Chief Executive of award-winning development agency Medicine Mondiale. Sir Ray’s life story is itself an inspirational one.
Born in England to violent parents, he grew up in orphanages and on the street. Despite the odds, and thanks to a thoughtful teacher, he managed to get through school, discovering a love of science along the way. He settled in New Zealand in the 1970s.
Sir Ray was a founding member of the Department of Clinical Pharmacology at the Auckland University Medical School and a Technical Director of Douglas Pharmaceuticals. A meeting with the legendary Fred Hollows changed his life. As he lay dying in a Sydney hospital bed, Fred Hollows told Sir Ray to “stop making money out of sick people and do something *a Hollows expletive* useful with your life”.
As an advisor for the Fred Hollows Foundation, Sir Ray designed and commissioned Intraocular Lens Laboratories in Eritrea and Nepal, cutting the cost of lenses and making them available to the world’s poorest communities. The low-cost lenses are expected to bring sight to 30 million people by 2020. As the CEO of Medicine Mondiale, Sir Ray worked with teams to develop infant incubators, IV flow controllers and pre-digested protein formulations to combat child malnutrition.”
The VIDEO
RELATED
