The future of eyecare research will be on display later this week during a unique competition being put off by Fighting Blindness Canada.

The “Eye on the Cure” competition will see three teams from Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto pitch their research proposals focusing on diseases that are known to cause blindness.

Fighting Blindness Canada’s Director of Research, Larissa Moniz, describes the competition as “Dragon’s Den meets Ted Talk.”

About $100,000 dollars in prizes will be handed out, including the $50,000 dollar research to Watch Award, and $30,000 dollar People’s Choice Award. For the latter, the public can make a donation and then vote on who they think should win.

Moniz says one out of every five Canadians has an eye disease that puts them at risk for vision loss and blindness.

As an example, she says eye drops used to treat Glaucoma are now commonplace, but that treatment is “sight-saving.” A generation ago that disease would have led to blindness. She points to that as an example of how research has changed lives.