Chicago-based startup Opternative offers a simple promise: Get a new prescription for glasses or contacts from the comfort of your own home. Opternative’s technology allows doctors to provide faster and better service to more people by using computers and smartphones to conduct the kind of routine exam that doctors use to determine most glasses prescriptions. But not in South Carolina. In 2016, the state Legislature voted to ban Opternative’s innovative technology in order to protect the profits of existing storefront businesses, even overriding the governor’s veto.

Bob McNamara, an attorney for the Institute for Justice, and Pete Horkan, Head of External Affairs at Opternative, will talk about their fight to make vision prescriptions more accessible and to pave the way for other innovative businesses who challenge the status quo.

Free and open to the public. Hosted by the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship & Federalist Society. Mexican (Catering Out the Box) Served.