John Owens

'Necessity is the mother of invention' is A) the name given to a 1960’s rock band, B) a proverb published in the early 1500's, or C) the solution you developed when you ran the risk of washing your hair with something other than shampoo or conditioner. A lifetime watching the sunrise while sitting on his surfboard followed by a day (actually many, many days over his 40+ years in IT) reading a computer screen had damaged John's eye site and contributed to his development of dry Age Related Macular Degeneration (AMD). AMD is the disease of the retina that causes the progressive, painless loss of central vision, affecting the ability to see fine detail, drive, read and recognise faces. John was lucky as his AMD was discovered early during a routine eye test for a new pair of glasses. So with the help of specific vitamin supplements and access to great medical care John will have very useful vision for a long time. Many others are not as lucky. Although John's kids don't consider him to be lucky as their mother has the other common eye problem, Glaucoma. AMD and Glaucoma are two of the leading causes of blindness worldwide. So John and his wife learnt to take certain steps to make sure they correctly identified which product or item they were looking for. This lead John to transfer the product development and distribution skills he refined during his IT career to developing and distributing low vision aids for people who don't wear their reading glasses in the shower.