Guest speaker Donna Campbell, an employee of the organization Aravind, inspired us by sharing the mission of Aravind Eye Care today. She shared Aravind’s founding story, and how Dr. V started Aravind in India with the mission to eliminate needless blindness. They now have 14 hospitals, 82 rural vision centers, a manufacturing division, and a major healthcare research group. She shared with us that they value providing high quality, compassionate care for all regardless of ability to pay. They contribute the “secret” of Aravind’s success to their ability to create disruptive innovation for someone other than themselves. Dr. V’s ability to inspire generations has inspired us today and we are glad our members got to hear from Donna first-hand the positive change this organization has in the world.

 

Lisha MCcormick, the CEO of Last Mile Health, was our second guest speaker today. Her organization works to save lives in the most rural communities in the world. They work to save people who do not have access to medical care and die as a result when they could survive if they had basic primary services delivered to them. Lisha taught our members that “The best emergency system is an everyday system that can surge during crisis.” This rang true when the COVID-19 pandemic began, when several community healthworkes from Last Mile Health contributed to helping and immunizing those affected around the world.

 

Hearing about the lifesaving work both of these organizations do put into perspective how lucky we are and inspired our members to find a way to contribute. Wrapping up our first semester Stories of Transformation: Businesses that Change Lives Event Series with Aravind Eye Care and Last Mile Health gave great insight on how to mold our roles as students and professionals in the future in a way that supports businesses that do good. Hearing their mission and values face to face today was the first step for us to start making change. We are excited to hopefully get hands on experience with organizations like these next semester if it is safe for our members and be able to support these organizations in any way we can.