At the World Congress of Audiology in Paris in September, a special prize was announced for the best innovation that addresses an unmet medical need. Candidates were selected from domains such as clinical trials or medical devices, and given five minutes and five slides to pitch in front of an international jury of researchers, clinicians, economists and industry professionals.
The first prize was awarded to Peter Santa Maria from EarFlo, and the second prize to Jennifer Goodall from MindAffect B.V. The jury decided to give an additional Educational Prize to Alexis Bozorg-Grayelli from Vertimage.
ENT and Audiology News caught up with Jennifer Goodall to find out more.
Can you tell us a bit about the inspiration behind your project and what specific problem you aimed to solve?
MindAffect was initially focused on developing a faster, more robust brain-computer interface (BCI) to enable communication for people with locked-in ALS syndrome—a devastating condition that affects only a small group of people worldwide. However, as we advanced, we realised our patented BCI and AI technology had potential far beyond ALS applications. Specifically, it could address the need for a rapid, objective hearing assessment, designed especially for the large, underserved ‘hard to test’ population. This group includes young children, elderly individuals, and those with severe disabilities, who often struggle with traditional hearing tests due to challenges in consistently providing the required responses. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), this difficulty is a major reason for the high rates of unaddressed hearing impairments globally.
Leveraging this groundbreaking BCI and AI technology, we reimagined brain-response-based hearing assessments and developed Rapid-CAEP® technology, which powers our Sofi® Hearing System. The Sofi integrates our software with a comfortable, water-based, eight-channel EEG headband and a compact amplifier, enabling it to analyze the brain's responses to auditory stimuli at 20 times the speed of conventional systems. This system can create a full audiometric threshold curve within 10 minutes while filtering out movements such as blinking, tremors and swallowing.
This innovation allows patients to simply relax, watching a silent cartoon or a calming golf video, as Sofi produces an audiometric threshold curve based on their brain responses within 10 minutes, with an accuracy of under 7 dB compared to the gold-standard pure-tone audiometric test. This breakthrough not only enhances diagnostic precision but has the potential to improve hearing healthcare for millions of people worldwide.
What do you see as the biggest challenge or opportunity in the future of audiology and how does your innovation contribute to it?
More than 1.5 billion people suffer from hearing loss – yet only 23% are treated. The key issues are prevention, early identification and ensuring the correct treatment. Due to the limitations of conventional hearing systems, more than 1.6 billion people are ‘hard-to-test’ for hearing impairments (young children, the severely disabled and disabled senior citizens). This means that they are either being left out of the care pathway or practitioners must use inefficient and costly methods to determine hearing capability in order to provide the appropriate treatment. Our comprehensive hearing system, the Sofi®, will directly support early identification and assist in the assessment of the correct treatment for the best patient result.
What does winning this prize mean to you, and how do you hope it will influence the next steps for your project?
First and foremost, it gives the entire team a moment to rejoice that our solution is seen as valued, innovative and impactful by leaders in the field of audiology. Secondly, it provides us with the platform to introduce our system and to engage in partnerships in order to learn how the Sofi® can best serve patient needs. Thirdly, it provides our stakeholders with validation that the Sofi® is worthy of their commitment to ensure that we have the funding to reach the market.
Tell us a bit about yourself and your work to introduce you to our readers.
I am a yoga enthusiast, mother and wife dedicated to ensuring the remaining years of my life bring about positive change. I enjoyed my earlier career as an international investment banker, but now in my third act, I am using my skills to make a difference in the world – better late than never! I find it extremely exciting to work with the team on the cutting edge of science while improving the lives of a significant, deeply vulnerable and underserved group of patients in the real world.
