Optometry Giving Sight (OGS) has announced the inaugural Brien Holden Founders Awards Dinner, to honour the memory of the late Australian eye health pioneer.
The inaugural dinner will be held in the United States city of Boston in October, prior to the American Academy of Optometry’s 2025 annual meeting. 2025 marks the 10th anniversary of Prof Holden’s death.
During the evening OGS will present the first Optometry Giving Sight Brien Holden Founders Awards.
“Brien was an international leader in bringing awareness to, and addressing, uncorrected refractive error (URE) globally,” said OGS US Board Chair Dr Juan Carlos Aragon.
“He spent his entire career working to eradicate preventable blindness and vision impairment caused by UREs.”
2025 marks the 10th anniversary of Prof Holden’s death.
In 2003, Professor Holden along with the Brien Holden Vision Institute (BHVI) team, brought together leaders from the World Council of Optometry (WCO) and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) to discuss the need for a different approach to addressing URE.
At the time, most efforts to address URE focussed on optometrist-led mission trips to areas with no access to eye care.
“While these initiatives provided valuable one-time eye exams and eyeglasses to people in need, they lacked long-term, sustainable solutions to the ongoing need for primary eye care,” Dr Aragon said.
“Brien, along with BHVI, WCO, and IAPB leadership, recognised that the root cause of URE was the lack of optometry professionals and infrastructure to support optometry in developing countries.
“So, they established Optometry Giving Sight as a fundraising entity to support global projects that provide education and clinical training for optometrists, ensuring they can deliver care both now and in the future. Brien’s vision was to invest in education and infrastructure that would build optometry and create lasting change.”
Founders Awards a Fitting Tribute
Prof Holden’s widow, Yvonne, said she was pleased that her late husband was being remembered in this way.
“He was passionate about OGS right from the very start and determined it would serve a great purpose in optometry.
“I’m really proud that this is occurring because it would mean so much to him. I’m so happy that Brien hasn’t been forgotten, and that his work is continuing.”
Since its founding, OGS has awarded more than 200 grants to support the establishment of 14 optometry schools, the development of more than 130 vision centres, and the training of over 14,000 optometry professionals. Programmes partially funded by OGS have served more than eight million people in 47 countries.
