http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/lifestyle/health/x21086760/Framingham-entrepreneur-phones-in-help-for-hearing-loss
Framingham entrepreneur phones in help for hearing loss By Bob Tremblay/Daily News staff The Milford Daily News Posted Oct 08, 2012 FRAMINGHAM - The statistics speak loud and clear. The World Health Organization reports that 693 million people worldwide require hearing assistance. That's about 10 percent of the Earth's population, and as this population ages, that number is expected to grow. Also, a recent survey indicates that 70 percent of baby boomers experience hearing difficulty in such social situations as bars and parties. Do not despair, however, as a company with Framingham ties has dedicated itself to addressing this growing global public health problem by providing hearing assistance via smartphone. The company, SoundFest, notes that smartphones are expected to reach 70 percent penetration by 2016. Thus, SoundFest addresses the problem of hearing loss by leveraging the power of smartphones to deliver a hearing solution that it calls "cost-effective, convenient and uniquely capable." SoundFest products embed sophisticated signal processing software into smartphones, tablets and other multimedia consumer products to deliver personal sound amplification devices at less than one-tenth the average cost of a hearing aid. Mark Eisner, SoundFest's founder and chief technology officer, recently discussed the company with Daily News staff writer Bob Tremblay. QUESTION: How did you come up with the company's name? ANSWER: SoundFest evokes the joy of hearing, and the product name RealClarity expresses its fundamental value proposition: to be able to hear with real clarity despite age-related hearing loss and background noise. Q: Who owns the business? A: SoundFest is primarily employee-owned, but we are currently seeking outside investment to complete product development. Q: When was the business started? A: SoundFest was incorporated in 2011, but research into the product design began years before that. Q: Why was the business started? A: It all started with me getting older. A few years ago I noticed (or should I more clearly say my wife noticed) that I had some hearing loss. Basically I was saying "what" a lot, causing some frustration for the people (my wife) who were talking to me. I went to an audiologist and found out I did have a mild age-related hearing loss but not enough, in the audiologist's opinion, to justify the $4,000 it would cost to get hearing aids. I was blown away by that high cost and the new knowledge that everyone experiences some age-related hearing loss. I have been an software innovator and entrepreneur for many years so, of course, I started to think about software solutions for hearing loss. A couple of the reasons that hearing aids are expensive is first, for cosmetic reasons, hearing aids are miniaturized, fitting all their components into something that goes in your ear or behind your ear and, secondly, all the components are highly customized and proprietary so they could fit in the miniaturized casing. But I am old enough to remember what hearing aids used to look like. People carried a cigarette pack-sized processor in their shirt pocket and had a wired earpiece running up to their ear. (The miniaturization occurred because people were uncomfortable announcing to the world that they had a hearing disability.) However, I realized that in today's world many people are walking around with a cigarette-sized, very powerful computer in their pocket, i.e., a smartphone. Smartphones are not only powerful computers, they have non-proprietary chips to process sound and speech because they are phones. I knew we could put all the power of even the most expensive hearing aids on software that would run on a smartphone. This would reduce the cost of hearing assistance to hundreds of dollars (or less) instead of the thousands that hearing aids cost. It would certainly help my problem, and the hearing loss problem that millions of aging baby boomers would face. More importantly, there are 700 million people in the world with mild-to-moderate hearing loss who cannot afford hearing aids but probably have or will have mobile phones with enough technology to support hearing assistance. So SoundFest was born. It turns out there were a number of hard engineering problems that had to be solved to make things work. It has taken a few years, but we have patent-pending solutions which should protect our business. Of course, in this economy, we face our biggest challenge: getting funded so we can really get going and get our product, RealClarity, into the hands of millions of people. SoundFest is currently a finalist in the MassChallenge startup competition (www.masschallenge.org). All finalists are provided free office space for a year in MassChallenge offices. After that period expires, we expect to move from Boston and return to our offices to MetroWest. I reside in Framingham. Q: What did you do before you started this business? A: I am a serial entrepreneur, co-founding companies based on software innovation. Q: Is this your first business? A: No, but it's probably my last as startups take an average of nine years to be what is considered "successful." Q: Do you work in other businesses? A: I still have a day job to pay the rent. Basically, I am involved in bringing my technical expertise to patent creation and litigation. Q: What does your company sell? A: SoundFest is planning to launch the RealClarity iPhone app later this year to help people hear better in noisy environments like restaurants, business conferences and airports. In early 2013, we anticipate launching a wireless earpiece that complements the app as well as an Android version. Q: What makes you different from the competition? A: Current smartphone apps to help hearing loss only amplify sounds, which does little good in a noisy environment. RealClarity can intelligently amplify only nearby voices, making conversation easier and more enjoyable. Q: What is the price of your product? A: The smartphone app will cost $19.99, and the wireless earpiece will cost less than $200. The sophisticated audio processing in a smartphone can replace many of the capabilities of hearing aids costing thousands of dollars. Q: How many employees do you have? A: Four people are actively working on SoundFest today, but we have also enlisted outside researchers and digital signal processing specialists to refine our product design and features. Q: Any news to report? A: We just launched a video of me on the Indiegogo crowdfunding site (http://igg.me/p/174304?a=891905). It explains the product as well as provides a way for people to be one of the first to buy it at a great discount. The company's website is www.soundfestinc.com. Copyright 2012 The MetroWest Daily News. Some rights reserved _______________________________________________ Please be sure to include a URL to the article. Reply to the sender with a "Thank you" if you like this post. _______________________________________________ Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
