Oxenham and Beim in CI Hackathon

Andrew Oxenham, Distinguished McKnight University professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota, was part of the team that organized the world’s first Cochlear Implant Hackathon. Oxenham and Jordan Beim, postdoctoral research associate in the Center for Applied and Translational Sensory Sciences (CATSS), teamed up with representatives from the University of California San Francisco and Advanced Bionics to create the event.

Cochlear implants are electronic devices that restore hearing to those who were born without hearing or lose it over time. While these devices help with hearing loss, they still do not provide the user with normal hearing. To try and discover better ways to convert sounds into electrical signals a cochlear implant hackathon was created to crowdsource a solution. The job of the hacker is to come up with a better way to convert sound into electrical signals to make the sound even better than the current algorithms.

Oxenham’s presentation can be viewed on YouTube alongside Beim’s presentation.

Corresponding PDFs can be found on the CI Hackathon website.


Composed by Flora Pollack, communications assistant.