As part of a partnership to support the next generation of eye care professionals, Transitions Optical and the Opticians Association of Canada (OAC) are now accepting submissions for the 2019 Students of Vision Scholarship Program. Currently enrolled (for 2019-2020 school year) opticianry, optometry and optometric assistant students from across Canada are eligible to apply for the chance to win one of three prizes: a $2,500, $1,500 or $500 scholarship.

To enter the scholarship program, students must develop a project in the form of an essay, video or presentation about how they plan to incorporate bringing more awareness to lens technology that will improve and/or protect their patients’ vision now and for the future. A flyer detailing the scholarship program challenge can be found at Transitions.com/StudentsofVision. Submissions will be evaluated by a panel of judges against the following criteria: creativity, strategic thinking and ethics.

This year’s topic was inspired by consumer research that found that nine out of 10 eyeglass wearers declare they are light sensitive^[1], but 61% never spoke to their optician about it and 1 in 3 feel alone when it comes to light sensitivity. In fact, 79% noted that they would like to learn more from their ECP about light sensitivity and its consequences^[2]. In terms of harmful blue light, the results are similar: 88% of millennials, 77% of Gen X and 75% of Boomers consider harmful blue light protection important. However, only 31% of respondents knew that the sun is a source of harmful blue light^[3].

“Research has shown that patients are aware that they need protection and even consider this a priority in their eyewear, yet they are unsure of how to bring it up with their eyecare professional,” said Patience Cook, director, North America marketing, TransitionsOptical. “Our hope is that this topic continues the ever-growing conversation about all the various lens technologies for protection and better vision quality now available to patients.”

“We feel that this year’s scholarship topic aligns perfectly with part of our mission at the Opticians Association of Canada: to educate vision care consumers about matters related to their eye health,” said Robert Dalton, Executive Director, OAC. “We are pleased to partner with Transitions Optical for another year of the Students of Vision scholarship program and look forward to reading this year’s entries.”

All submissions should be sent to StudentsofVision@Transitions.com by November 1, 2019. The winners will be announced on November 15, 2019.

Click HERE for the press release.

[1] Transitions Optical life 360 live wearers testing in US, France, China (IFOP 2016/2017) – N=117 glasses wearers

[2] Transitions Optical, MVP research in US, Dynata 2019, N=993

[3] 2017 Wave 3 Consumer Brand Tracking Results. Online survey conducted by Wakefield Research on behalf of Transitions Optical, Inc. in December 2017