UT Undergrads Win the 2026 Stanford Center on Longevity’s Design Challenge

A team of students from The University of Texas at Austin took home first place at the Stanford Center on Longevity's Design Challenge last month for their project, PhoroVis. The design challenge is a global competition that prompts students to envision and create products that improve well-being across the lifespan.

The students traveled to Stanford University in April to pitch their design - a low-cost, portable device aimed at expanding vision prescription access to people in rural communities around the world - and took home a prize of $10,000 to begin development of their product.

More than 4 billion people around the world need some form of vision correction, but according to the World Health Organization, almost a billion of those lack access to getting the correction they need. During their design challenge presentation, PhoroVis team member An Vo posed the question -- "With such good devices available, why do so many people around the world still lack care?"

Optometrists commonly use a machine called a phoropter to determine patients' eye prescriptions. It rotates lenses to determine the precise curvature and power needed for patients to see clearly. However, in rural areas around the world, communities lack access to the machines, which are expensive and physically heavy to transport.

This prompted the creation of PhoroVis, a lower-cost, lightweight and portable device that can be used to determine eye prescriptions in various settings. The engineering undergrads built a syringe to push in fluid and exert pressure on a flexible PDMS lens -- a transparent, silicone polymer used in contact lenses. This pressure allows for a change in curvature of the lens and in the refractive power, which can be used to measure a patient's prescription.

"Untreated visual impairment affects every aspect of a person's life," biomedical engineering senior Bethel Daniel said during their presentation at Stanford. The team is hopeful their innovative device, developed at UT, will help more people around the world get an accurate eye prescription.

The PhoroVis development team features students from the Cockrell School of Engineering and the College of Liberal Arts: An (Ian) Vo, Krishn Virani, Mihir Thakur, Bethel Daniel, Mahith Ravulapati, Hieu Tran, Aarushi Anand, Dhroov Pathare and Ajeet Nagi.