Providing free eye exams and prescription glasses in as little as 10 minutes, First Sight transforms lives in Naples and underserved countries around the world.  

Founded by Naples resident Nizar Mamdani, the ongoing initiative continues to expand its reach, helping thousands see more clearly, regardless of where they live or what they can afford.  

Born in East Africa, Mamdani attended college in Japan before relocating to the U.S. a little more than 50 years ago. He and his late wife, Nancy, relocated for treatment at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, or UNMC, after his first wife was diagnosed with lymphoma.  

While in Nebraska, Mamdani contacted the university’s chancellor to start the center’s first International Healthcare program. As the program’s executive director, Mandani brought hundreds of patients to Nebraska for medical care from 59 different countries. In order to accomplish this, Mamdani spent more than six months traveling and visiting 235 possible partner institutions across 78 countries, forming 124 collaborative partnerships in 45 countries.  

After his wife passed away, Mamdani shifted his focus.  

In August 2001, he set up the Mamdani Philanthropy Program – a program to provide the best available patient care training program and education to health care professionals in underserved countries.  

Mamdani continued to travel for this project. To train health care workers, he traveled with a UNMC team to many countries for conferences and conventions, including India and Thailand.  

He met his second wife, Marsha, 20 years ago. With a doctorate in education, she frequently accompanied Mamdani on his trips, educating the students of the countries they visited. 

“She would come back and say to me, ‘You know these kids are sitting in the back [of the classroom]. They’re not paying attention.’ She kept telling me all the time,” Mamdani said. “So, finally, we went and looked into what was causing this. We found out that the kids sitting in the back couldn’t see the blackboard.” 

The concept for First Sight was conceived by Mamdani after the couple returned to Nebraska. But it wasn’t until he retired and relocated to Naples a few years ago that he had the time to devote himself to the project.  

“There are now 8 billion people in the world, and 1 billion people have uncorrected reflective errors. They need eyeglasses, but they don’t really have anywhere to go. If you go to remote areas in Africa, they have nowhere to go,” he said.  

Before he founded the company, Mamdani wanted to address the World Health Organization’s six barriers to treat refractive errors in developing countries: accurate, reliable testing; lack of electricity; mobility; insufficient training of staff; cost effectiveness and sustainability for children.  

“I wanted to make sure that we tick mark each one of these things before we start,” he said. “So, we did it. Our program is very low tech. Everybody talks about high tech today. We wanted to go in the opposite direction because our people that we are serving don’t have high-tech things.” 

UNMC helped Mamdani conduct a comprehensive clinical trial of First Sight eyeglasses and its processes in the U.S. Field trials were also conducted in Haiti. Professionals found that the First Sight prescription system was about 98% as accurate as high-technology systems used today.  

The prescription system is a First Sight Kit that contains materials to outfit 100 people with eyeglasses. The kit includes:  

• 220 lenses to fit the 100 included frames  

• Two nearsighted lens trees  

• One farsighted lens tree  

• Two tumbling nearsighted E-charts 

• One tumbling farsighted chart  

It also includes an instruction trifold, a tape measure, an eye blocker and other helpful supplies. The kit weighs only 20 pounds.  

There are 10 distinct lens strengths in the lens trees. A participant is positioned 20 feet from the tumbling E-chart. Using the eye blocker, the participant blocks one eye at a time and reads down the chart using the lens tree to find the perfect lens. The correct lens can then be snapped into the frame to create newly customized prescription glasses in under 10 minutes. 

The service is free for patients.  

First Sight has collaborated with health care and educational institutions to bring First Sight services to more than 30 countries.  

David Kennedy is executive director of Mission and Ministry at AdventHealth Mid America. AdventHealth started working with First Sight on a mission trip to Peru in 2021.  

“We just found incredible results,” Kennedy said. “We were able to restore sight for a lot of people or improve sight for a lot of people. We haven’t been on a trip since we haven’t used First Sight Kits.”  

Through its partnership with AdventHealth, First Sight now provides the kit on all of the company’s mission trips in 17 different countries.  

First Sight is also making a local impact through the Naples Lions Club Foundation, where Mamdani serves as the current president.  

Dr. Howard Freedman has been a member of the local organization for 25 years and is a retired pediatric ophthalmologist. He has helped develop the Naples Lions Club screening program, providing free eye and hearing screening and glasses to Collier County residents.  

Residents used to receive recycled eyeglasses from the Naples Lions Club, but those might not be the right prescription. First Sight eliminates this problem.  

“Now, when people come to see us in the screening and we determine the new glasses, if the glasses are asymmetric, we can provide the exact lens into the glasses or whatever it is that the patient needs,” Freedman said. “That is a tremendous addition to what we’re doing, so we can get people who come to us a pair of glasses that they can utilize that fit their needs.” 

First Sight has made a significant impact. 

“If you see people when they get eyeglasses, it will melt your heart. It’s so rewarding to see how it changes their life,” Mamdani said. “We travel a lot every year, we go to different places. These teams from Advent Hospital are all volunteers – many are nurses, many are doctors, and I hear stories. It’s the same story that I have experienced, and my wife, Marsha, has experienced time and again. It’s the joy. It’s the changing of the life. That’s the biggest pleasure.” 

This story was published in The Naples Press on April 18.