Hearing Health & Technology Matters (HHTM), an online resource for hearing professionals and consumers with hearing loss, announces a new inaugural awards program to celebrate innovation in the hearing industry.
Through the annual Hearing Technology Innovator Awards™, HHTM honors technological innovation and achievement in the hearing industry.
These awards are conferred in five categories:
- Hearing Aids
- Personal Listening Devices
- Assistive Technology and Software
- Equipment
- Auditory Implants
Hearing aids
No technology has greater potential to improve the lives of people with hearing loss than hearing aids. Hearing aid technology has progressed at dizzying speed since the introduction of ear-level digital hearing instruments in 1996.
This award is presented to the developer of the device or innovation representing the greatest advance in professionally-fit hearing aid technology in the past year.
Personal Listening Devices
Personal listening devices encompass a broad range of non-prescriptive technologies designed to amplify sounds for people with hearing loss. These include personal amplifiers, over-the counter (OTC) or direct-to-consumer (DTC) hearing devices, hearables and other wearable listening systems.
This award recognizes personal listening devices that deliver the greatest value to people with hearing loss.
Assistive Technology and Software
The award for Assistive Technologies and Software recognizes products and services designed to enhance accessibility for people with hearing loss. Technology in this category includes smartphone apps, captioning technology, tele-audiology software and more.
Equipment
The award for the Equipment category recognizes clinical technologies used by professionals that elevate the level of care for people with hearing loss. This would include new and improved diagnostic, verification, validation and habilitation technology.
Auditory Implants
The potential of implantable devices for habilitation of hearing loss is immense. This award recognizes the most significant advancements in auditory implant technology, including percutaneous and transcutaneous bone conduction aids, and cochlear implants.
Voting and Awards
Following closure of the submission period, nominees will be put up for a public vote in September. Voting will be open for a 2-week period and submissions receiving the most votes in each category will be declared winners.
The overall “Innovation of the Year” winner will be determined by an independent panel of highly qualified judges, which will decide, among the 5 category winners, the submission most deserving of recognition based upon the following criteria:
- Innovation – Technology that represents novel thinking in addressing habilitation of acquired hearing loss, its treatment and delivery.
- Effectiveness - Technological advances that best address limitations of previous generations of technology
- Efficiency – Advances that best close the distance between hearing care and the end-user
- Utility – Innovation that promotes greater ease of use by the end-user and/or practitioner
Category winners and the “Innovation of the Year” award winner will be announced during the Academy of Doctors of Audiology (ADA) virtual conference, AuDacity 2020, which will take place on October 16-17, 2020.
Proceeds generated by the awards program will be donated to the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA).
"People who are part of the HLAA community are those who use technology to stay in the hearing world”, said HLAA Executive Director, Barbara Kelley. “We depend on innovation in hearing technology to keep pace with other technology advancements. I hope this HHTM competition inspires companies and individual inventors to stretch for new ways to keep people with hearing loss connected."
Companies interested in submitting their products for the new awards program can submit their products here.
About the Hearing Technology Innovator Awards
The Hearing Technology Innovator AwardsTM is an international awards program designed to recognize and celebrate innovation within the hearing industry. Learn more at https://hearinghealthmatters.org/hearing-technology-innovator-awards/
ABOUT HHTM
Hearing Health & Technology Matters (HHTM) is an organization dedicated to bridging the knowledge gaps in treating hearing loss by providing timely information and lively insights to anyone who cares about hearing loss. Readers and contributors are drawn from many sectors of the hearing field, including practitioners, researchers, manufacturers, educators, and, importantly, consumers with hearing loss and those who love them. By involving all these groups, we hope to bridge the gaps in knowledge that so often divide them. To learn more, visit HearingHealthMatters.org.
