164 - Pioneering Efforts to Provide Affordable and Accessible Hearing Care on a Global Scale

This week Andy Bellavia is joined by Deaftronics co-founder, Tendekayi Katsiga, and Georgia Tech professor, Dr. Saad Bhamla, to discuss their respective projects aimed at addressing the global crisis of hearing loss. Deaftronics, based in Botswana, designs and manufactures affordable hearing aids that utilize solar power, while promoting awareness and accessibility to hearing care solutions, particularly in low-resource and underserved communities. Dr. Bhamla and his lab have been working towards creating a $1 hearing aid and he discusses the challenges involved in developing a functional, but extremely low-cost hearing device. For more information on these projects visit: * Deaftronics: https://deaftronics.com * Saad Bhalma's lab: https://bhamla.gatech.edu **Future of Hearing Healthcare Panel Discussion: Ear and Hearing Care for All: We Can Make It Happen: https://youtu.be/Sxvk_lJQcrE Research articles mentioned in this discussion: * LoCHAid: An ultra-low-cost hearing aid for age-related hearing loss: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0238922 *Comparing outcomes of ultra-low-cost hearing aids to programmable, refurbished hearing aids for adults with high frequency hearing loss in Malawi: a feasibility study: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fresc.2023.1153056/full Be sure to subscribe to our channel for the latest episodes each week and follow This Week in Hearing on LinkedIn and Twitter. - https://twitter.com/WeekinHearing - https://www.linkedin.com/company/this-week-in-hearing - https://hearinghealthmatters.org/thisweek/