Sanduk Ruit grew up in a remote village in the Nepali Himalayas and saw his sister and several neighbors die from treatable diseases. That image led him to become an ophthalmologist and to develop a micro-surgery technique for cataracts that requires no sutures, takes less than five minutes, and can be performed even in communities without electricity.
The intraocular lenses he uses are manufactured locally at a fraction of the Western market price. The result: more than 130,000 people regained their sight free of charge or at almost no cost in Nepal, Ethiopia, North Korea, and dozens of developing countries.
Co-founder of the Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology in Kathmandu, Ruit has trained hundreds of surgeons in his method to multiply its impact. He has won the Ramon Magsaysay Award and the Isa Award for Service to Humanity. For him, curable blindness is an injustice, not a fate.