Our mission at imvi

Improving People’s Lives by Training Functional Vision & Reading

10% of the population can’t learn how to read due to a functional vision problem called vergence insufficiency, causing people to experience double vision, fatigue, and concentration issues reading.

Improved vergence is essential to free up brain capacity to enable people with, e.g., dyslexia and ADHD, to read better. But up to 50% of the population could significantly improve their reading performance with brain-eye coordination training.

Vergence is the simultaneous movement of both eyes in opposite directions to obtain or maintain a single binocular vision. Vergence insufficiency is not an eye problem. Instead, it ́s the brain that needs the training to coordinate the eyes better.

We founded imvi to provide vergence training using up-dated and easy-to-use tools. With our method, you can train on your mobile phone wherever you are, whenever you want to.

Background

Watching a person in the family struggling with reading initiated the interest in vergence insufficiency for imvi founder Michael Malmqvist. After trying several types of glasses and training methods, he found that the effects were only temporary or absent.

So, Michael started investigating and analysed the root causes of reading difficulties, identifying the problem as a vergence eye-motor problem. However, apart from invasive surgery, there was only the Push-up training method to improve vergence issues. Push-up was developed in the US around 1950–60 and is a doctor monitored, manual training for vergence insufficiency. It consists of using two pencils and switching focus from one pen to the other every 2 seconds for 30 minutes daily for six months.

Michael wanted to have faster results, deconstruct it from doctor’s appointments and make it independent of the manual procedure. In addition, make the training more accessible and entertaining! So, he decided to create a new training method. He presented an initial prototype to Karolinska Institutet, Bernadotte department, at the St. Erik’s Eye Clinic in Stockholm. The presentation received a very positive response and became the start of a long collaboration.

After the initial prototype, we created the first product generation: a computer equipped with a 3D screen and a DVD. The users trained their vergence by watching the 3D screen while following the pictures from the DVD three times per week for 12 weeks. The studies showed that after 12 weeks, all the users improved their vergence function.

We are now taking the next step to make the training even more accessible, leaving the computers behind and introducing mobile technology, independent of platform, together with a pair of VR glasses.

Our goal with the App is to offer more accessible, effective, and efficient training to all persons that could benefit from an improved vergence function, that is, 50% of the world’s population. And our focus is set on the 10–20% of persons affected by severe reading problems, e.g. dyslexia, where our training can make a dramatic difference.

Imvi is all about Improving People’s Lives by Training Functional Vision & Reading. With this mission we have a clear link to and support the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Our primary contribution is to enable people to read, write and calculate better, by training their vergence, i.e., eye-coordination. Up to 27% of people in the age 7–15 years suffer from vergence problems.

With our training we help enable everyone to read better, have more energy, better concentration, less headaches etc., which also leads to strengthened self-image and increased self-esteem.