Karim Hakimi
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Karim Hakimi
Karim Hakimi (Persian: کریم حکیمی) (born 1933) is an Iranian-Canadian entrepreneur and optician, known for founding Hakim Optical, a large chain of eyeglass stores across Canada. Early life Hakimi was born in Iran. At the age of five, his father died, forcing Hakimi to leave school to work to support his family. He found work in Iran grinding discarded window glass into lenses for magnifying glasses and eyeglasses. This experience taught him much about the techniques and equipment needed by an optician. At 14, Hakimi attended night school to complete his elementary education, learning to read and write. Later, following service in the Iranian navy, he immigrated first to Germany and then to Switzerland, where he furthered his education in the optician's craft. Career Hakimi finally settled in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where he found work in the field of ophthalmic lens grinding. He saved his money until he could start his own shop. In 1967, Hakimi opened his own lens-g ...
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Optician
An optician is an individual who fits glasses or contact lenses by filling a refractive prescription from an optometrist or ophthalmologist. They are able to translate and adapt ophthalmic prescriptions, dispense products, and work with accessories. There are several specialties within the field. Types Dispensing optician or ophthalmic dispenser A dispensing optician is anyone who prepares, fits, and dispenses prescription lenses, spectacles, glasses, contact lenses, or any other type of vision-correcting optical device to the intended user. They may interpret optical prescriptions issued by an ophthalmologist, optometrist, or physician for the lab optician who fabricates vision-correcting optical lenses. They also measure inter-ocular or pupillary distances, vertex distances, pupil fitting heights, and frame angles to determine the proper position of vision-correcting lenses. In addition, they adapt, modify, or align frames with vision-correcting lenses to the face of th ...
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Hakim Optical
Hakim Optical Lab Ltd. is a Canadian optical chain, the largest privately owned optical chain in Canada. In 2016, it had about 160 stores. Founder Karim Hakimi, a native of Iran, learned to make lenses from old window glass as a child. After a stint in the navy, Hakimi worked in the optical industry in Switzerland. He then migrated to Canada and opened an optical laboratory in the former Elmwood Hotel (now the Elmwood Spa) in downtown Toronto, Ontario.Kearney, Mark and Ray, Randy (2002): ''I Know That Name! The People Behind Canada's Best Known Brand Names'', pp. 278–279 He bought and rebuilt old equipment from a closed-down lab in Chicago. After making a variety of lenses, he began selling them to local optometrists.''The Toronto Star''"Top 25 Immigrant Awards; Rags to Riches One Lens at a Time" Page V6. (June 30, 2011). He soon began selling lenses directly from the Elmwood location.
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Toronto
Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the List of North American cities by population, fourth-most populous city in North America. The city is the anchor of the Golden Horseshoe, an urban agglomeration of 9,765,188 people (as of 2021) surrounding the western end of Lake Ontario, while the Greater Toronto Area proper had a 2021 population of 6,712,341. As of 2024, the census metropolitan area had an estimated population of 7,106,379. Toronto is an international centre of business, finance, arts, sports, and culture, and is recognized as one of the most multiculturalism, multicultural and cosmopolitanism, cosmopolitan cities in the world. Indigenous peoples in Canada, Indigenous peoples have travelled through and inhabited the Toronto area, ...
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Door-to-door Salesman
Door-to-door is a canvassing technique that is generally used for sales, marketing, advertising, evangelism or campaigning, in which the person or persons walk from the door of one house to the door of another, trying to sell or advertise a product or service to the general public or gather information. People who use this sales approach are often known as ''traveling salesmen'', or by the archaic name ''drummer'' (someone who "drums up" business), and the technique is also sometimes called '' direct sales''. A variant of this involves cold calling first, when another sales representative attempts to gain agreement that a salesperson should visit. Historically, this was a major method of distributing goods outside large towns, with the salesmen, often self-employed, known as pedlars, peddlers, or hawkers. With the huge growth of retail shops in the 19th century, it became less important, and the development of mail order and finally sales via the internet gradually reduced ...
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Bifocals
Bifocals are eyeglasses with two distinct optical powers correcting vision at both long and short distances. Bifocals are commonly prescribed to people with presbyopia who also require a correction for myopia, hyperopia, and/or astigmatism. History Benjamin Franklin is generally credited with the invention of bifocals. He decided to saw his lenses in half so he could read the lips of speakers of French at court, the only way he could understand them. Historians have produced some evidence to suggest that others may have come before him in the invention; however, a correspondence between George Whatley and John Fenno, editor of the '' Gazette of the United States'', suggested that Franklin had indeed invented bifocals, and perhaps 50 years earlier than had been originally thought. On the contrary, the College of Optometrists concluded: :Unless further evidence emerges all we can say for certain is that Franklin was one of the first people to wear split bifocals and this act of ...
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Rags-to-riches
Rags to riches (also rags-to-riches) refers to any situation in which a person rises from poverty to wealth, and in some cases from absolute obscurity to heights of fame, fortune and celebrity—sometimes instantly. This is a common archetype in literature and popular culture, such as the writings of Horatio Alger, Jr. Pre-20th-century fictional examples * Fairy tales, such as ''Cinderella'' and ''Aladdin''. * The Dickens novel ''Oliver Twist'', whose protagonist rises from a workhouse to child labour to a gang of pickpockets to being adopted by a wealthy family. * The Arthurian story of Sir Gareth, who rises from a lowly kitchen boy to a prominent Knight of the Round Table. * The folklore tale of Dick Whittington and His Cat, who, with the help of his cat, rises from orphaned poverty to become thrice Lord Mayor of London. Historical examples * Abdalonymus was a gardener who was appointed king of Sidon by Alexander the Great due to his possible royal ancestry. * Emperor Basi ...
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Sovereign Military Order Of Malta
The Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), officially the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, and commonly known as the Order of Malta or the Knights of Malta, is a Catholic lay religious order, traditionally of a military, chivalric, and noble nature. Though it possesses no territory, the order is often considered a sovereign entity under international law. The Order traces its institutional continuity with the Knights Hospitaller, a chivalric order that was founded about 1099 by the Blessed Gerard in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The order is led by an elected prince and grand master. Its motto is ("Defence of the faith and assistance to the poor"). The government of the Sovereign Order of Malta has a similar structure to state governments. However, it also includes specific features associated with its nature as a lay religious order, as well as particular terminology evolved from nine centuries of history. The ...
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Ontario Legislative Building
The Ontario Legislative Building () is a structure in central Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It houses the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, and the viceregal suite of the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario and offices for members of the provincial parliament (MPPs). The building is surrounded by Queen's Park, sitting on that part south of Wellesley Street, which is the former site of King's College (later the University of Toronto), which was leased from the university by the municipal government of Toronto in 1859, for a " peppercorn" payment of CAD$1 per annum on a 999-year term. The southern portion of the site was later handed over to the provincial government. The building and the provincial government are both often referred to by the metonym "Queen's Park". Architecture Exterior Designed by Richard A. Waite, the Ontario Legislative Building is an asymmetrical, five-storey structure built in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, with a load-bearing iron frame. This is cl ...
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Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal
The Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal () or The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal was a commemorative medal created in 2012 to mark the 60th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's accession in 1952. There are four versions of the medal: one issued by the United Kingdom, another by Canada, the third for the Caribbean realms of Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and the fourth issued by Papua New Guinea. The ribbons used with the Canadian and British versions of the medal are the same, while the ribbon of the Caribbean and the Papua New Guinean medal differ slightly. The different iterations of the medal were presented to tens of thousands of recipients throughout the Commonwealth realms in the jubilee year. Design Named by Order in Council as the ''Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee Medal'', the Canadian medal was designed by Cathy Bursey-Sabourin, Fraser Herald of the Canadi ...
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Hakimi Lebovic Stop
Line 5 Eglinton, also known as the Eglinton Crosstown LRT or the Crosstown, is a light rail transit line that is under construction in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, that will be part of the Toronto subway system. Owned by Metrolinx and operated by the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), the line was conceived in 2007 during the administration of Toronto mayor David Miller as part of Transit City, a large-scale transit expansion plan that included several light rail lines proposed across the city. While the plan was later dropped by successive municipal governments, only the Eglinton Crosstown LRT received support and funding from the Government of Ontario under premier Kathleen Wynne. The line is being constructed in two phases. The first phase of the line will include 25 stops along Eglinton Avenue, from Mount Dennis station mostly underground to Laird station, after which it will run predominantly at-grade within the street's median to Kennedy station, where it will connect underg ...
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Canadian Businesspeople
Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''Canadian''. Canada is a multilingual and multicultural society home to people of groups of many different ethnic, religious, and national origins, with the majority of the population made up of Old World immigrants and their descendants. Following the initial period of French and then the much larger British colonization, different waves (or peaks) of immigration and settlement of non-indigenous peoples took place over the course of nearly two centuries and continue today. Elements of Indigenous, French, British, and more recent immigrant customs, languages, and religions have combined to form the culture of Canada, and thus a Canadian identity and Canadian values. Canada has also been strongly influenced by its linguistic, geograph ...
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Living People
Purpose: Because living persons may suffer personal harm from inappropriate information, we should watch their articles carefully. By adding an article to this category, it marks them with a notice about sources whenever someone tries to edit them, to remind them of WP:BLP (biographies of living persons) policy that these articles must maintain a neutral point of view, maintain factual accuracy, and be properly sourced. Recent changes to these articles are listed on Special:RecentChangesLinked/Living people. Organization: This category should not be sub-categorized. Entries are generally sorted by family name In many societies, a surname, family name, or last name is the mostly hereditary portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family. It is typically combined with a given name to form the full name of a person, although several give .... Maintenance: Individuals of advanced age (over 90), for whom there has been no new documentation in the last ten ...
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