Project Prakash

For most scientific enterprises, societal benefits are realized long after the research effort. However, in rare instances, even the process of conducting research directly benefits people’s lives. We have been fortunate in that we have been able to identify and operationalize one such instance; we call it Project Prakash. It grew from the confluence of a crucial humanitarian mission and the fundamental scientific quest I alluded to earlier. The overarching mission of Project Prakash is to bring light into the lives of curably blind children and, in so doing, illuminate some fundamental scientific questions about how the brain develops and learns to see.