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James Chen (www.jameschen.vision) is a visionary philanthropist and campaigner with a ‘moonshot mindset’, a model of audacious leadership which calls upon high net worth individuals to invest capital, time and expertise into high-risk, early-stage innovations to achieve global impact.
James uses this moonshot mindset to focus on two key areas, early childhood literacy and the world’s largest unmet disability: poor vision.
James has spent over two decades working on this deceptively simple problem – how to bridge vision care gaps and deliver universal access to vision correction.
This mission began with Vision for a Nation, a pioneering programme that transformed Rwanda into the first developing nation to provide universal eye care to its entire population. James then founded Clearly, an internationally acclaimed campaign that helped to reframe vision correction from a siloed health issue to a high-priority driver of global development and economic productivity. His advocacy was pivotal in encouraging the United Nations to universally adopt its first-ever resolution on vision in 2021, which committed all 193 member states to “Vision for Everyone” by 2030.
Beyond his work in vision, James is a deep-rooted champion of early childhood literacy. Through The Chen Yet-Sen Family Foundation, he and his wife, Su Lee, have pioneered initiatives to foster a lifelong love of reading. They founded Bring Me a Book Hong Kong, an NGO promoting family literacy, and established the Feng Zikai Chinese Children’s Picture Book Award to recognise and encourage excellence in Chinese children’s picture books.
James’ approach to philanthropy embodies his mantra of “privatising failure and socialising success,” arguing that philanthropists possess a unique “superpower” – the freedom to absorb the costs of high-risk pilots so that society can benefit from the resulting breakthroughs. By funding the “unproven” stages of innovation, he provides the investable thesis and data needed to unlock institutional-scale action from governments and international bodies.
James is responsible for funding DRIVE – a set of nine randomised controlled research trials designed to inform policy that will accelerate affordable eye care, sustainable development and equity globally. Focusing on multiple demographics across geographies and industries, the trials provide a body of research and evidence to make vision correction a global priority. DRIVE aims to help demonstrate that low-cost interventions – glasses – can improve education, literacy, productivity, mental health and financial independence in developing countries.
As an author and expert commentator on philanthropic trends, James’s book, Clearly: How a 700 Year Old Invention Can Change the World Forever, explains his mission and identifies the barriers to delivering universal access to glasses. In 2025, a second edition was published titled Clearly: A Short History of Eyeglasses and How a Moonshot Idea can Change Everything, which supports his focus on empowering a new generation of philanthropists to meet the “fierce urgency of now”. He seeks to inspire capital holders to harness the imminent $124 trillion wealth transfer and the transformative power of AI to solve global challenges at a speed previously thought impossible.
James was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Bath and was the recipient of the 2024 Spears Impact Award for his contributions to global philanthropy.
陈禹嘉先生（www.jameschen.vision）是一位富有远见的慈善家，他秉持着“登月思维”，这种开创的领导模式，呼吁高净值人士将资金、时间和专业知识投入到高风险的早期创新项目中，以期创造全球影响力。
他运用“登月思维”聚焦于两大关键领域：儿童早期读写能力培养，以及全球最大的未被充分关注的残障问题——视力障碍。
这二十多年来，他一直致力于解决一个看似简单却意义重大的问题——如何弥合视力保健差距，实现全民享有视力矫正服务。这项使命始于Vision for a Nation，这是一项开创性的计划，使卢旺达成为第一个为全体国民提供全民眼科保健服务的发展中国家。随后，陈禹嘉先生创立了Clearly运动，这项享誉国际的倡导运动帮助人们重新认识视力矫正，将其从一个孤立的健康议题转变为推动全球发展和经济生产力的重要动力。他的倡议对于促使联合国于2021年通过其史上首个关于视力问题的决议起到了关键作用，该决议承诺所有193个成员国到2030年实现“人人享有视力”的目标。
除了在视力领域的工作，他还是早期儿童阅读教育的坚定倡导者。他和妻子李淑慧女士透过陈一心家族慈善基金，开创了多项旨在培养终身阅读兴趣的举措。他们创立了书伴我行 (香港) 基金会（Bring Me a Book Hong Kong）——一个推广家庭亲子阅读的非政府组织，并设立了丰子恺儿童图画书奖，以表彰和鼓励优秀华文儿童图画书的创作。
他的慈善理念体现了“将失败私有化，将成功社会化”的宗旨。他认为，慈善家拥有一种独特的“超能力”——能够承担高风险试点计划的成本，从而使社会能够从由此产生的突破性成果中受益。透过资助创新项目中“未经证实”的阶段，他提供了必要投资的理论和数据，促使各国政府和国际机构采取制度性行动。
陈禹嘉先生资助了DRIVE计划——这是一组包含九项随机对照研究试验的系列项目，旨在为制定能加速全球范围内可负担的眼科保健服务、可持续发展和公平的政策提供依据。这些试验涵盖不同地区和行业的多个群体，提供了一系列研究和证据，使视力矫正成为全球优先事项。 DRIVE计划旨在证明，这种低成本的干预措施——眼镜——可以改善发展中国家的教育、读写能力、生产力、心理健康和经济独立状况。
作为作家和慈善趋势的专家评论员，他在其著作《Clearly: How a 700 Year Old Invention Can Change the World Forever》中阐述了他的使命，并指出实现眼镜普及所面临的障碍。 2025年，该书出版了第二版，名为《Clearly: A Short History of Eyeglasses and How a Moonshot Idea can Change Everything》，进一步强化了他致力于赋能新一代慈善家以应对“当下紧迫挑战”的理念。他希望激励资本持有者们，利用即将到来的124万亿美元财富代际转移和人工智能的变革力量，以前所未有的速度解决全球挑战。
陈禹嘉先生被巴斯大学授予荣誉博士学位，并因其对全球慈善事业的贡献荣获2024年Spears影响力奖。
