International Women’s Day 2026: Women using technology to bridge the eye care gap

In eye health, gender inequality remains a defining challenge. Women and girls are disproportionately affected by vision loss and blindness, yet they often face the greatest barriers to accessing care – from financial constraints and caregiving responsibilities to travel limitations and a lack of female eye care providers.

Globally there are 112 million more women than men living with vision loss, including blindness. One contributing factor is that women make up 70% of the health workforce yet hold only 25% of leadership roles.

At Orbis, we believe gender equity is essential to ending avoidable blindness. Technology plays a critical role in helping close this gap. Through digital training, telemedicine and online mentorship, Orbis is supporting women eye care professionals to build skills, maintain careers during disruption, and extend high-quality eye care to communities that need it most.

This International Women’s Day, we’re celebrating five women who are using Cybersight to overcome obstacles and provide better care to their patients.

Staying connected to eye care through conflict and displacement 

When conflict in Sudan disrupted hospitals and training programs, Dr. Dinah Ibrahim refused to let it end her career. A highly experienced ophthalmologist, Dr. Dinah was forced to leave Khartoum and continue her life and work across multiple countries. Throughout this period of upheaval, our digital platform, Cybersight, became a vital lifeline.

Using online courses and surgical resources, Dr. Dinah was able to refresh her knowledge, maintain her confidence and safely continue performing complex procedures such as corneal transplants, even after long clinical interruptions.

Today, she is not only learning through technology but teaching with it—mentoring postgraduate ophthalmology students in Sudan by curating Cybersight content and sharing it digitally.

Her story highlights how technology can help women eye care professionals sustain their skills and leadership, even in the most challenging circumstances.

Building expertise and confidence in Malawi

In Malawi, where just a small number of ophthalmologists serve a rapidly growing population, access to subspecialty training is extremely limited.

Dr. Priscilla Mhango turned to Cybersight nearly a decade ago to strengthen her skills and confidence beyond what was available locally.

Through online lectures, short courses, and virtual consultations, Dr. Mhango filled critical gaps in areas such as neuro-ophthalmology, glaucoma, and cornea care. As a woman working in a resource-constrained system, this access to global expertise has been essential to her professional growth.

Today, Dr. Mhango is a lecturer and mentor herself, using digital resources to train medical students and residents and encouraging the next generation—especially young women—to embrace lifelong learning through technology.

From digital learner to clinical leader in South Africa

Early in her career, Dr. Bayanda Mbambisa faced limited opportunities for structured subspecialty training in South Africa’s overstretched public hospitals.

With few local mentors available, she turned to Cybersight webinars and online consultations to build her surgical skills and clinical confidence.

Engaging with digital training content and seeking remote expert guidance, Dr. Mbambisa was able to translate online learning directly into practice, successfully performing complex procedures such as corneal transplants.

Now in senior clinical roles, she continues to rely on technology to manage unfamiliar cases and to support colleagues. As a woman advancing into leadership, her journey shows how digital platforms can help break down traditional barriers to specialist training and career progression in eye health.

Strengthening eye care through shared digital learning in Zimbabwe

As one of a limited number of ophthalmologists in Zimbabwe, Dr. Thobekile Sibanda recognizes how difficult it can be to access ongoing professional development, particularly for women working in under-resourced health systems.

Since joining Cybersight, she has used digital learning to stay up to date, adapt global best practices to local realities, and strengthen her own clinical work. Beyond her personal learning, Dr. Sibanda actively shares online resources with junior colleagues, creating a ripple effect that supports wider training and capacity building.

Her experience highlights how technology can empower women eye care professionals not only to overcome isolation, but to become knowledge leaders within their communities.

Accelerating learning and paying it forward in Vietnam

Dr. Nguyen Van Quynh is a powerful example of how young women in ophthalmology are using technology to accelerate their skills—and then passing that knowledge on to others.

After completing her ophthalmology residency at Hanoi Medical University in late 2022, Dr. Quynh continued to invest heavily in digital learning, even though it was not formally embedded in her training program.

A highly self-motivated learner, she logged on to Cybersight during evenings, weekends and between clinical rotations. To date, she has completed 23 certified online courses and attended eight webinars.

As a young resident, she particularly valued Cybersight’s case-based learning formats, which helped strengthen her clinical reasoning in sub-specialties where hands-on exposure was limited, including paediatric ophthalmology.

She explains: “They would give you a case and ask what you’d do—and then walk you through it. I learnt how to think through a patient, not just memorize a list.”

Even in areas where she had more frequent exposure, such as diabetic eye disease, Dr. Quynh found immense value in Cybersight’s AI tools, which supported quicker and more accurate identification.

Today, as a member of the teaching faculty at Hanoi Medical University, she actively champions Cybersight in the classroom—recommending specific courses and webinars aligned with students’ clinical rotations.

Her story shows how technology can empower young women to advance quickly, build confidence, and shape the next generation of eye care professionals.

This International Women’s Day, these stories remind us that technology is more than a tool—it is a bridge.

By connecting women to training, mentorship, and global expertise, digital platforms help close the gender gap in eye health and ensure more women, families and communities can access the care they deserve.

Orbis is proud to support women using technology to lead change and build a more equitable future for eye health worldwide.