Scientist named New Zealander of the Year

Photo: Jason Dorday

From a streetkid sleeping rough, Ray Avery has charted a movie-script life which was capped last night with being honoured as New Zealander of the Year.

The 62-year-old scientist and inventor dedicates himself to fighting poverty and ill health in the Third World.

The awards chief judge, former prime minister Jim Bolger, said: "Awards like these give us a chance to say thank you to extraordinary individuals, who inspire us as New Zealanders."

Mr Avery's early life was very different to last night's acclamation.

He was abandoned as a baby: "I got put into the orphanage for the first 14 years, moved around southern England in a kind of Dickensian labyrinth of bad stuff.

"And then I decided to take my life in my own hands and ran away and lived on the streets of London for about a year before I was picked up in a police raid and invited to go back into the education system."

That "invitation" was the making of him. He was taken under the wing of a group of Oxbridge professors who taught him science and how to dress, eat, speak, play bridge and tennis and dance.

"They gave this kind of hobo kid off the streets a social education and how to communicate."

By the age of 26 he owned a string of laboratories, drove a vintage MGA car – and loathed himself.

"I hated myself, I thought I was a real prick. I thought if I had money and I had a position that all of the orphanage debris would wash away and I would be accepted and ... that would make me happy."

So he left England and in 1972 ended up in New Zealand, which seemed like "instant home".

These days he is a successful businessman, and has produced low-cost inventions that have saved the lives of millions of the world's poorest people.

He developed intraocular eye lenses, which mean 30 million people will regain their sight by 2020. The lenses are made cheaply in factories he designed in Eritrea and Nepal.

He had teamed up with ophthalmologist Fred Hollows, who became known for his work in restoring eyesight for thousands of people.

But after Mr Hollows' death, from cancer in 1993, he was ready to call the project off for being too tough.

"[But] I had this kind of catharsis, that if anybody can do this, I can because I can survive anywhere, I can make anything work. I knew then who I was."

When he finally produced the first lens it sold for $5, compared with $360 charged elsewhere. He collapsed the price globally, revolutionising Third World eye care. There are now 16 million people using his lens implants.

Of the award, he says it means he has won the respect of his countrymen and "I have finally found my way home".

See Unlimited's 2008 story about Ray Avery