GCN Associate
DAVID GREEN

Doing Business Everywhere
Financial Markets
Sustainble Development

David Green has worked with many organizations to make medical technology and health care services sustainable, affordable and accessible to all, particularly to the poorer two-thirds of humanity.  David is a MacArthur Fellow, Ashoka Fellow and is recognized by Schwab Foundation as a leading social entrepreneur. His most significant work is the development of an economic paradigm for making health care products and services available and affordable to the poor.  This paradigm of ‘compassionate capitalism’ utilizes production capacity and surplus revenue to serve all economic strata, rich and poor alike, in a way that is both financially self-sustaining and affordable to all members of society.

In 1992, David directed the establishment of Aurolab (India), the first non-profit manufacturing facility in a developing country to produce affordable intraocular lenses (IOLs), suture, pharmaceuticals and eyeglasses.  Aurolab is one of the largest manufacturers of IOLs in the world, with sales to 109 countries. David also directed the establishment of suture (wound closure product) manufacturing at Aurolab in 1998 and hearing aids in 2003.

In addition to establishing medical manufacturing, David has helped develop high-volume, quality eye care programs that are affordable to the poor and self-sustaining from user fees.  He helped develop Aravind Eye Hospital in Madurai, India, which performs 250,000 surgeries per year, making it the largest eye care system in the world.  70 percent of the care is provided free of charge or below cost, yet the hospital is able to generate substantial surplus revenue. 

David has replicated this cost recovery model in Nepal, Malawi, Egypt, Guatemala, El Salvador, Tibet, Tanzania and Kenya and has assisted the Lions Aravind Institute for Community Ophthalmology to build their capacity to provide this assistance to well over 200 programs worldwide. He is now collaborating with the International Agency for the Blind and Deutsche Bank to create an “Eye Fund” that will improve financing for sustainable eye care. David also is Vice President of Ashoka, where he works to develop more abundant and efficient financing for the social sector.

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