Welcome. You're on air with Ella where we share simple strategies and tips from people who are doing something better than we are.

Whether it's wellness or relationships to just living better and with more energy or changing your mindset to accomplish more in your own life and succeeding however you define it. This is where we share the

best of what we're learning from the experts and we're learning more every day. Live better. Start now.

Let's go. Hey, you're on air with Ella and today I am joined by Drewven Patel. Hey, Drouven, how are you?

Hey, hello. I'm very well. Thank you. Tell me something. Where are you as we speak?

The south of London. So I'm based in somewhere called Tombridge Wells, Kent in the United Kingdom. So we are talking today about blue light. It's not just our eyes, right, Drumen. It's our skin, it's our sleep, it's even our mood. We'll talk about it. But before we do that, could you tell us who you are in what you do? Yeah, certainly. So my name is Drubim Tau. I'm an optometrist qualified here in the UK. Back in 2012, I was studying an optometry at City University in London. And on the weekends, I was working at an optician chain known as Vision Express. I think in the US, it's known as Grand Vision. And the lead optometries, she gathered all the team, included myself and said, hey, everyone, we've got this new product innovation for people that wear glasses. And she said, it's something called blue control and people can add it onto their spectacles. And she said, you know, if patients have this on their glasses, they'll be able to be eye strength. And I was naturally intrigued was I've grown up with my parents, all is telling me, you know, looking at screens is bad for your eyes, but they didn't really have a reason for it, right? I thought, is this the missing piece to the puzzle? So I kind of ran back to the fact, to the university, and the next week I did modelled from the faculty

and the lecturer is that I did a research product on it. And somehow I got my way, so I did

a research product on how blue light affects the eyes physiology and circadian rhythms, which

is effectively our eye structures and off sleep and wake cycle.

And after spending nine months doing that research, I found, yes, blue light from screens

did cause eye strain, visual stress and headaches, but it also suppressed melatonin,

which makes it harder for us to sleep.

And my mind was a bit blown there because at that time, it was the iPhone kind of

three era, right? So it was early on in the smartphone age. And I just thought to myself,

this is, you know, screens are going to get bigger and brighter. These pain points are going to

become more frequent. And lastly, I didn't wear glasses. So I said, how can I take this technology

and put it directly onto the screen itself? Because for me, it was a personal problem. That's where my journey began and that my university, had a sister university called Cass Business School. And there was this competition where you submit an idea and I was like, oh, I've got this idea. Let me submit it. So I was fortunate enough to pitch my idea and convince, you know, judges and whatever else. And I won the

competition. And, you know, I got a bit of grant funding. And that's where my journey began

with Ocichord, which is where we now create products to filter blue light from screens. And

it's been a somewhat of an organic journey from starting from my university dorm room to now

obviously set, creating a business where we sell products in over 70

countries and in the US, we sell with Best Buy, Nordstrom, Verizon. In a nutshell, that's me and my

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