We Need Your Ideas: Update on the Ideas Competition

By Timothy Cooke

The summer is here, and the ideas competition is rolling along with over 180 ideas and 700 people signed up. The competition, which runs until the end of September, asks people from around the world to create innovative ideas to raise awareness for hearing loss and inspire people to take action.

We have been extremely impressed with the amount of thought-provoking ideas in the competition. Just last weekend, the Ideas Competition conducted a innovation workshop at the Eriksholm Research Center Summer Camp in Denmark. Each summer, the Eriksholm Research Center invites audiology students from around the world to learn more about the latest innovations in hearing health care. During the four-day summer camp, participants camp outside in the fresh air and attend lectures and workshops led by a diverse group of subject matter experts.

As part of this year’s program, Annette Molbech, Annegrethe Mølhave and Tim Cooke from the Ida Institute conducted a workshop to inspire students to come up with innovative ideas. The students came up with some great ideas. One involved targeting educators in elementary and high schools to spread the word among students and parents. Another idea was to place fun messages and catchy photos on disposable coffee cups to grab people’s attention and direct them to a website with information about hearing tests and hearing loss. 

In July, we are asking people to come up with innovative ways to apply technology to raise awareness for hearing loss and inspire people to take action. This could be integrating smartphones with hearing aids or using online games to raise awareness in a fun way.

If you haven’t done so already, please go check out the ideas in the competition and enter your own idea by visiting www.awarenessforhearingloss.com