TBWA\India’s Blink to Speak has won the Cannes Health Grand Prix for Good, which is open to Gold Lion-winning entries ineligible for a Grand Prix in their section.

Blink to Speak is an eye language developed for the NeuroGen Brain & Spine Institute and the non-profit, Asha Ek Hope Foundation, both in Mumbai, to help people with paralysis communicate. It uses 50 simple eye movements to build an extensive eye language. Its creators assigned simple messages commonly needed by patients to basic combinations of eye movements and created easy to use sets of eye actions, using the 8 alphabets of the eye language – Shut, Blink, Left, Right, Up, Down, Roll and Wink.

10,000 copies of the guide to the language have been distributed and the language is also available as an e-book.

Health Grand Prix for Good jury president, Rajesh Mirchandani, chief communications officer, United Nations Foundation, commented, “The award is designed to recognise creative achievements that promote the advance of social good and support the UN Sustainable Development Goals. To do this, we must come up with ideas that are scalable and reach the furthest left behind. We got chills when we saw ‘Blind to Speak’. We were impressed with its simplicity and its ability to inspire and empower.”

The Healthcare Agency of the Year was awarded to Havas Lynx. Area 23 an FCB Health Network Company was second and Langland, third.

The Healthcare Network of the Year was awarded to FCB Health. Havas Health & You was second and Publicis Health, third.

The Young Lions Health winners are Gerardo Saavedra, and Emiliano Salmon, both from Felipa Mexico.