{"id":12683,"date":"2019-05-10T11:59:11","date_gmt":"2019-05-10T15:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/?p=12683"},"modified":"2019-05-10T13:38:36","modified_gmt":"2019-05-10T17:38:36","slug":"hipper-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2019\/05\/hipper-hearing\/","title":{"rendered":"Hipper Hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Kevin
Kevin Franck (Image: Garyfallia Pagonis)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kevin Franck<\/a>, MSE \u201904, is on a mission to help the world hear better\u2014and that starts, he says, \u201cby changing the perception of everyone around us.”<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil it\u2019s as natural\u2014and perhaps fashionable\u2014to use devices to help you hear as it is to use glasses to help you see, we\u2019ll need to show off our hearing devices and demonstrate how they integrate into our modern digital lifestyle rather than hide them,\u201d notes Franck, director of audiology at Massachusetts Eye and Ear and a faculty member at Harvard Medical School, where he leads a department of more than 40 audiologists.<\/p>\n

Franck also works with nonprofit organizations, such as the Hearing Loss Association of America, that advocate for better hearing and companies that create a wide range of hearing assistance products in his efforts to improve access for people with hearing impairments.<\/p>\n

Currently, only a small fraction of people who could benefit from hearing devices and other assistive listening technologies use them. \u201cWe need to change the way we do business,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s wide range of clinical hearing devices\u2014hearing aids, as well as devices that transmit sound through the body or interface with the hearing nerve directly\u2014are more effective and easier to use than ever before, and the advent of \u201chearables\u201d (much cheaper than traditional hearing aids because they don\u2019t require professional services) can help change perceptions, Franck predicts. \u201cWe\u2019ll sell hearing devices that make you feel young because of what you will be able to do with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of Franck\u2019s career has focused on helping those with hearing loss help themselves. For example, while earning his MBA at the University of Pennsylvania, Franck filed to protect the intellectual property of a system aimed at helping patients program their own cochlear implants. That work caught the attention of Cochlear Limited, which recruited him to run its global software marketing division from Sydney, Australia, for four years.<\/p>\n

Later he and others formalized a startup called Ear Machine, creating an algorithm that allowed people with hearing loss to adjust their hearing aids as well as an audiologist could. Once Bose Corporation bought this technology, Franck led marketing for the Bose Hear Emerging Business, which focused on developing hearing tools, and helped launch its first product based on this technology. Soon, a new law will make these devices exempt from state dispensing regulations to help people with more simple hearing needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy both helping companies reach self-sufficient patients with hearing loss more directly, and improving access to those who need our clinical services\u201d says Franck, \u201cwe\u2019ll help a far larger group of people enjoy better hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kevin Franck, MSE \u201904, is on a mission to help the world hear better\u2014and that starts, he says, \u201cby changing the perception of everyone around us.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":12790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[1742,4480,4485,4490,4495,4500],"class_list":["post-12683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","tag-hearing-loss","tag-kevin-franck","tag-hearing","tag-audiology","tag-hearing-devices","tag-hearing-assistance","issue-spring-2019"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHipper Hearing - JHU Engineering Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2019\/05\/hipper-hearing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hipper Hearing - 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