BRILLE was started by Rigmor C. Baraas and Gro Setereng Scheel in 2020. They saw that healthy eyes, a normally developing visual function and having eye correction if you need it is essential for mastering and thriving in a world that becomes more and more digitized. They saw the need for more knowledge and more research. Next, Gaute T. Einevoll was invited to join BRILLE.

In 2011 Baraas became the first female professor in optometry & vision science in the Nordic countries. She is nearsighted on one eye and longsighted on the other. Having unequal eyesight on her two eyes (termed anisometropia), she had never had an eye examination prior to becoming a university student. The comfort and visual stamina she could achieve with eye correction fueled her interest in eye & vision research. Understanding how eyes & visual function develops and age is her primary research focus.

In 2000 Setereng Scheel, a female technology entrepreneur, was one of the founders of Mediateket AS, a driver to modernize the media industry through digitalization. She is nearsighted on both eyes (termed myopia) and got her first eye correction when she was 14 years old. She has firsthand experience with how important good eyesight is for having visual stamina, for seeing details and the overall picture. Being in the media and TV industry for nearly 30 years working with change management and digitalization, she knows that for digitalization to succeed it requires each employee to thrive.

In 1996, Einevoll became professor of physics after losing the battle to become the first Scandinavian in space. He has perfect eyesight on both eyes (termed emmetropia) and has good detail, contrast and color vision, which is often a prerequisite if you are to become an astronaut. He only got glasses when the lense inside his eye couldn't help focusing at different distances anymore (termed presbyopia). Seeing that he could use methods from theoretical physics to understand vision and the brain, he shifted his gaze to computational neuroscience. Understanding how the visual function works mathematically is his primary research focus.