SAN RAMON, CALIF., 11 September 2023—CooperVision’s highly anticipated OptiStudent™ Awards final, taking place at the Centre of Innovation in Budapest, Hungary, is fast approaching. Seven finalists – six individuals and one pair – will present their research projects to a panel of four judges on Saturday 16 September, with the world able to join in for the first time.
The OptiStudent™ competition (formerly known as FORCE), pitches optometry students from across Europe against one another with the aim of inspiring them to strive for excellence in their studies and to develop their professional knowledge base and network to benefit their future careers.
Each finalist undertakes a six-to-eight-week research project on a contact lens or anterior eye-related topic of their choice and presents their findings to a panel of four judges. The winning team will be crowned the 2023 CooperVision OptiStudent™ of the Year and present their research project at the Netherlands Contact Lens Congress (NCC) in March 2024.
Finalists from seven countries – Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom – will gather in Budapest for this year’s final.
Head of the School of Optometry at Aston University, UK, Professor James Wolffsohn, will chair the competition alongside judges Elena García Rubio, Director of INOP in Spain, Dr Stefan Bandlitz, Senior Lecturer at Cologne School of Optometry in Germany, and French Ophthalmologist Dr Houda Baïz.
Commenting on the final, Professor James Wolffsohn said: “There is nothing better than to see students reach their full potential, and CooperVision’s OptiStudent™ Awards achieves just this. The finalists have all already won their national competitions, so they are inspiring to engage with. The fact that so many past winners and competitors have established great careers at the top of their profession is no great surprise.”
Students, educators and researchers from all corners of the globe can watch the competition final and awards presentation exclusively on LinkedIn via the link here. The audience can also cast their vote for their favourite finalist – a unique aspect of this year’s final.
# # #
About CooperVision
CooperVision, a division of CooperCompanies (NYSE:COO), is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of contact lenses. The company produces a full array of daily disposable, two-week and monthly soft contact lenses that feature advanced materials and optics, and premium rigid gas permeable lenses for orthokeratology and scleral designs. CooperVision has a strong heritage of addressing the toughest vision challenges such as astigmatism, presbyopia, childhood myopia, and highly irregular corneas; and offers the most complete portfolio of spherical, toric and multifocal products available. Through a combination of innovative products and focused practitioner support, the company brings a refreshing perspective to the marketplace, creating real advantages for customers and wearers. For more information, visit www.coopervision.com.
About CooperCompanies
CooperCompanies ("Cooper") is a global medical device company publicly traded on the NYSE (NYSE:COO). Cooper operates through two business units, CooperVision and CooperSurgical. CooperVision brings a refreshing perspective on vision care with a commitment to developing a wide range of high-quality products for contact lens wearers and providing focused practitioner support. CooperSurgical is committed to advancing the health of women, babies and families with its diversified portfolio of products and services focusing on medical devices and fertility & genomics. Headquartered in San Ramon, Calif., Cooper has a workforce of more than 15,000 with products sold in over 130 countries. For more information, please visit www.coopercos.com