Dr Anand Vinekar, is the Founder and Program Director of KIDROP, a tele-ROP program in India which was founded in 2007 and is the Head of Department of the Pediatric Retina Service at Narayana Nethralaya Eye Institute, Bangalore, India. This program is regarded as one of the largest telemedicine initiatives in the world (over 210,000 infant sessions by 2022), addressing the challenges of ROP management in unserved areas in rural India, and has mentored several such programs across the world. KIDROP serves over 145 NICUs, and its model has been validated by the CDC guidelines and UNDP as an ideal model for middle-income countries. He is a member of the national task force for ROP in India, founding secretary of the Indian ROP Society, and has served as an advisor for ROP screening protocols for India and three other nations. He served on the ICROP-3 committee, ORBIS, Queens Diamond Jubilee Trust, IAPB, IMA and UNICEF ROP committees and was the organizing secretary of the 5th World ROP Congress in 2022.

Education & Training
Dr Vinekar graduated from St. Johns Medical College (17 gold medals), MS (Ophthalmology) (Gold Medal) & Retina Senior Residency from PGIMER, Chandigarh. He has been awarded the FRCS(Glasgow), DNB (Ophthalmology) and FPVR(USA) and has defended his PhD (Maastricht University, Netherlands) in ROP. He has a degree in hospital administration from Symbiosis, Pune. He has completed his Post Graduate Diploma in Medical Law and Ethics (PGDMLE) from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore.

Achievements & Awards
Dr. Vinekar has won a university record of 17 gold medals in MBBS, the Pope John Paul Citation & Medal, the Kataria Gold Medal (awarded by Prime Minister of India), the All-India Young Researcher award, Sight Savers Citation, Positive Health Award, CS Bhaskaran Endowment Oration Award, JM Pahwa Award (VRSI), KR Datta Award (AIOS), AIOS IJO Gold Medal, MM Joshi Award, Col. Rangachari Award (AIOS), Innovator Award 2018 by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India and Innovator of the year 2019 (AIOS), Researcher of the Year (2022), ET Selvam Award among others. He is ranked in the top 2% of World Scientists published by Stanford and enlisted in the top 10 ROP experts worldwide on the ExpertScape ranking.

Research & Publications (Number Of Indexed Papers)
He has 100+ publications (2022), 26+ textbook chapters and one textbook to his credit.

Video Testimonials

Reviews

Total Reviews – 2026