Serial entrepreneur envisions success
Carolina senior Sasha Surkin’s WeyeZE do-it-yourself eyeglasses kit won an Innovate Carolina pitch competition.
Sasha Surkin has been a serial entrepreneur for almost a decade. Her newest and biggest project yet is WeyeZE (pronounced “wise”), the startup she created after inventing a personalized corrective-lens eyeglasses kit. The goal: improve the accessibility and affordability of quality vision care.
The kit is in beta testing, and she’s preparing for another round of seed funding while she continues her studies in UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School’s Undergraduate Business Program.
WeyeZE has made impressive waves since it launched in March 2021 when Surkin was 18. She took part in several prominent pitch competitions, placing second for the 2024 National ACC InVenture Prize, which aired live on PBS, and winning $10,000.
WeyeZE received a $10,000 grant from the NC IDEA Foundation, and when Surkin was in high school, she got a $50,000 grant as the winner of the 2020 Archangel Dreamer Competition, funding what became WeyeZE. In April 2024, she won first place and $12,000 at the inaugural Joan and Chester Luby Pitch Competition through startup incubator Innovate Carolina.
“I am so optimistic because I’m driven by the people who needed it yesterday,” she says. “This year will be all about getting this closer to that.”
Surkin was inspired at 15 to create WeyeZE after reading a story in The New York Times about how lack of access to vision care created a $250 billion deficit in global productivity. The story featured a young student in India who couldn’t become a pilot because of his degraded vision until a traveling eye care clinic visited town.
At the same time, Surkin experienced her own vision problems. She went to an optometrist and ordered glasses, which were covered by her parent’s health insurance, at Costco.
Her idea was to simplify the process in the form of an eyeglasses kit someone can use to create new corrective glasses within minutes or to adjust the types and strengths of lenses to fit unique, changing needs.
Surkin has pitched WeyeZE at several competitions, placing second for the 2024 National ACC InVenture Prize. (Submitted)
It’s not just about convenience. Other barriers to vision care include lack of insurance coverage, limited options for transportation, and the cost of screenings and glasses, according to a 2022 article in the American Academy of Ophthalmology. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 700 million people globally need glasses.
“WeyeZE was created initially to provide glasses to those who don’t have an optometrist in their area,” says Surkin. “It’s since transformed into something that can be offered as a convenient way to bring healthcare equity into the vision-care space. It’s empowering the individual.”
Surkin brought WeyeZE with her to Carolina as an assured admit to the business school. She sent professor Jim Kitchen ’87 an email out of the blue early in her first year, introducing herself and WeyeZE. Over FaceTime, Kitchen was enthusiastic about the project, encouraging her to enter the ACC competition she later took part in.
She got feedback from fellow students, valuable support from professors Ted Zoller and Melissa Geil, and staff member Jackie Fritsch, UBP associate director of admissions and recruitment.
“The thing I always loved about UNC Kenan-Flagler is the air of creativity. There’s a buzz when you walk in,” says Surkin. “The people make the place. I saw quickly that my desire to do this would not only be supported but encouraged.”
She’s a Luther Hodges Scholar, a Wayland H. Cato Jr. Merit Scholar and an Honors Carolina student, but WeyeZE always has been a priority. She brought a WeyeZE prototype with her on a Global Immersion Elective to Alaska to show it to the Alaskan Native Tribal Health Consortium. They wanted to keep it.
