At IALP Congress 2026 in Belém, our Community Hearing Aid team shared first results: an open-source prototype (Rock Pi S, 8-mic MEMS array, openMHA) built to test whether decentralized, community-repairable hearing care can work in the Amazon region, and beyond.

#FrugalInnovation #OpenSource #HearingHealth

87% of the estimated 10.7 million Brazilians with hearing loss have no hearing aid. Our Community Hearing Aid (CHA) project, presented at the 12th German-Brazilian Symposium, is building an open-source, solar-powered alternative from the ground up, designed with communities, not for them.

#FrugalInnovation #OpenSource #HearingHealth

Fourteen people from five countries came together as part of our CHA – Community Hearing Aid feasibility study to explore, sketch, discuss, and build. Audiologists alongside cultural scientists, students alongside senior researchers, people from the Netherlands, China, Brazil, and Germany, with varying experiences of hearing loss—all gathered around one table.

Into-waves entered the DWIH São Paulo 2024 competition ‘Artificial Intelligence: Spotlight on People and Society’ with a focus on artificial intelligence: how can it be used to contribute to economic sustainability and social and ecological development? Our team was certain: to build a resilient bottom-up economy, consisting of small players, for the production and distribution of a community hearing aid.

In October 2024, I travelled through the states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro to collect country-specific information on hearing aid provision and explore opportunities for cooperation for our project idea of a Community Hearing Aid.

We participated in the 11th German-Brazilian Symposium on Sustainable Development March 2024 in Tübingen with the following contribution: Sustainable Audiological Care in Brazil: A Low-Threshold Approach to Locally Manufactured and Custom-Fitted Hearing Aid Solutions

We participated in the 6th Workshop "Metrological Applications of Ultrasound" organised by the DEGA e.V. Ultrasound Committee.

We attended the WHO Meeting of the International Advisory Committee (IAC) on Non-Ionizing Radiation. 11–13 Jun 2024 with our contribution ``Risk assessment by standardized criteria of freely available ultrasound devices for diagnostic and cosmetic home use´´