We would like to once again congratulate all this year’s winners, thank you for the great inventions and we hope you enjoy the prizes!
Geoffrey Ball, Head Judge of the ideas4ears jury, congratulates all participants and 2021 winners with this video message to the ideas4ears community.
The contest challenged children aged between 6-12 years old from across the world to create an invention to improve the quality of life for people living with hearing loss. Competition entries came in the form of video presentations, detailed drawings, colourful paintings and even real-life prototypes, all aiming to improve the lives of people with hearing loss.
Due to the COVID-19 situation worldwide, the ideas4ears contest this year focused on children who were currently doing home-schooling and the parents who were supporting them. The contest proved to be a great opportunity for families to participate in a fun and educational activity together while at home.
For this reason, the grand prize winners this year received a laptop or a tablet to support their homeschooling. There was also be special prize packs sent in the post for some of the children whose efforts really impressed the judges.
Would you like to know more about this year’s winners of the inventors’ competition? Then meet all the bright inventors here!
Let’s see the winning children with their ideas4ears special prize packages!
It was no easy feat to make sure the prizes for the 2021 ideas4ears winners made it to their destinations, but our ideas4ears angels and parcel fairies did it! All our 2021 winners have their grand prizes. See their celebrations here:
🇧🇷 Abeni Radassa Silva Borges (6), Minas Gerais, Brazil
Abeni’s invention – a rainbow CI audio processor that can be customized with all the colours of the rainbow – won her the grand prize in our competition. The young lady is so thrilled about it! We are so glad for you, dear Abeni!
🇺🇸 Cambria & Kayla Henry (8), California, USA (joint entry)
Two of our ideas4ears winners, twin sisters Cambria & Kayla Henry from the USA, received their prizes recently and were absolutely thrilled. Kayla was born deaf in her right ear and received an ADHEAR bone conduction system when she started school. The twins won with their invention of a “Listen Up App“ that also features a search function. Congratulations to the two of you!
🇬🇧 Dylan Sandey (12), Cheltenham, United Kingdom
Dylan is one of our winners of this year’s ideas4ears competition and received his prize. He’s excited about his new laptop! Have fun with it, dear Dylan.
🇪🇸 Gonzalo Zafra Gutiérrez (9), Madrid, Spain
Gonzalo Zafra Gutiérrez has a cochlear implant in his left ear and uses the RONDO 2 audio processor. He is one of our winners of this year’s ideas4ears competition and received his prize recently. See him opening up his special prize package below.
🇦🇷 Hugo Benjamín Jovanovics (8), Tucumán, Argentina
Hugo from Argentina is a special boy. He invented a horse gallop motion sensor for his little brother Tomas’s MED-EL implant. With this invention, the CI batteries will be charged while his brother is horse-riding. What a fantastic idea and absolutely worth the prize!
🇵🇪 Juan Pablo Nicolás Anicama La Serna (12), Lima, Peru
🇩🇪 Laurin Hehl (8), Düsseldorf, Germany
Laurin shows us a radiant smile. He is one of the winners of this year’s inventors’ competition, wears cochlear implants himself and is very happy about his prize!
“I would like to thank my parents, my grandma & grandpa and my family who encouraged me to enter the competition. I never thought I would be one of the winners. I thank MED-EL for giving me such great hearing! I want to encourage other children to push through and show their ideas and never give up! I would have loved to go to MED-EL in Innsbruck to see how a CI is made, but unfortunately I couldn’t because of Corona.” said the young inventor.
🇨🇭 Luca Hägi (10), Köniz, Switzerland
Luca from Switzerland has been a cochlear implant user since he was 2 years old. His invention: GPS-MED-EL. It is an addition to the CI, which helps to find the desired address, and it can also make emergency calls. How cool would that be …? Congratulations to Luca too!
🇭🇳 Lucianna Buck (7), Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Lucianna from Honduras was ever so excited about her new computer and said “Thanks MED-EL for the computer I really love it!” – and she sent us a video message. We‘d also like to thank her for her great idea!
🇮🇷 Mohammad Hossein Jamshidi (10), Teheran, Iran
Mohammad Hossein Jamshidi from Iran was inspired by his mother to hand in his invention. With face masks, people often struggle to understand, so Mohammad came up with his cool “Phone Glove“, for which won him an ideas4ears prize. Enjoy and keep on inventing!
🇦🇹 Paul Pareiss (8), Vienna, Austria
Now we are cheering Paul from Austria. He is a bilateral cochlear implant user and attends primary school. At last he can pick up the prize for his invention, a recording function on his audio processor. Congratulations, Paul!
🇮🇳 Rahul Ram (6), Jodhpur, India and Tanvi Chhahira (10), Bangalore, India
The Indian ideas4ears team arranged an online award ceremony, with every child opening their surprise parcels at the same time during the event. The parcels were wrapped so tightly that it took quite a while – and a few family members – until the kids managed to open them! Winners Rahul and Tanvi from India opened their grand prizes (laptop) at the same time. Head juror Geoffrey Ball also participated in the award ceremony and congratulated the Indian winners personally.
But wait there is more prizes for our runner-up inventors and participants!
Check out these cute photos from ideas4ears entrants Anton Rehdes and Eva-Maria Rehdes from Andechs in Germany. Eva-Maria won in 2018, and now her brother has also been inspired to start inventing… keep it up!
Our other runner-up participants, Frederike and Luisa (pictured top right) and Dominikus (pictured bottom left) were very happy to be recognized in the contest. “I think it’s sooo cool! Thank you, thank you!” said Dominikus.
Antonio Sammartino from Italy was extremely overjoyed about his success in the ideas4ears competition – and so were we, Antonio! This is a must watch video.
Last but not least, this year’s ideas4ears UK entrants were honored at a special webinar. Every child received a parcel by mail and a note not to open it until the webinar. A golden envelope inside contained a special prize for the young inventors (a 100 GBP voucher!) and lots of sweets and MED-EL goodies. See for yourself!
Innovation – the basis for hearing implant progress
Innovation is essential when exploring ways to improve the lives of those with hearing loss and the ideas4ears competition has raised awareness of the benefits of hearing technology.
Whilst celebrating children’s creativity, ideas4ears aimed to engage parents to participate in an interactive activity with their children to improve the whole family’s understanding of the challenges associated with hearing loss and deafness as well as the benefits of treatment.
If you are worried about the hearing loss of a family member or for your own hearing loss, contact ideas4ears@medel.com to receive a free information package on hearing and the solutions available.
All the latest news and developments about ideas4ears can be found on the Facebook page. Make sure you follow us here www.facebook.com/ideas4ears to be kept up to date and become a part of the ideas4ears community!
