Smile Train is an international charity co-founded in 1999 by Brian Mullaney and Charles Wang with the mission of providing free cleft lips and palate surgery for children in developing countries and providing free cleft-related training for doctors and medical professionals. By March 2008, Smile Train had performed more than 280,000 cleft surgeries in 74 countries, raising $84 million with a staff of 30 people.[2] By 2009, when the organization celebrated its tenth year, it had assisted over 500,000 children.[1]
Smile Train uses technology including surgery-training software[3] and grading of operations via digital imaging to increase efficiency.[2] Mullaney, who sits on the board of directors of Presstek (a manufacturer and marketer of high-tech digital imaging solutions),[4] suggested in 2005 that Smile Train is close to performing a greater number of operations each year than the number of children born each year in developing countries with cleft deformities.[2]
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