Dr Sanduk Ruit received another accolade for his dedication towards eliminating blindness when he was named one of 37 social entrepreneurs by Schwab Foundation this week.

The winners were announced on Huffington Post on Monday. Each was honoured by their contribution to health, education, employment and the environment.

Dr Ruit, the medical director of the Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology, was a close friend and colleague of Fred Hollows and has already won more than 40 awards from governments and other institutions for his work.

Last year he won the 1.3 million Euro Champalimaud Vision Award, the largest monetary award for work on eyesight.

Dr Ruit has performed more than 100,000 sight saving operations and is famous for creating small incision cataract surgery and making it accessible to patients in Nepal.

The ‘Nepali technique’ as it has become known, is a ground breaking form of surgery which requires no stitches. 

Dr Ruit founded the Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology in 1994 which now treats more than 6,000 patients every week. It trains surgeon from all over the world, and manufactures plastic intraocular lenses at an affordable price for more than 70 countries.

Schwab Foundation gave Dr Ruit the honour for “providing quality ophthalmic care to the people in Nepal and those in rural and low resource areas. It has made the modern small incision cataract surgery even safer and cost effective to meet the needs of patients in low resource settings such as the Himalayas.”

The winners join Schwab Foundation’s community of Social Entrepreneurs which involves meeting leaders in business, government and the media.