Hearing loss affects 500 million people worldwide, especially the elderly. Today, only 20% of people suffering from hearing loss wear hearing aids. The main reasons include the high price of customized hearing aids, the low accessibility of hearing tests and the lack of awareness about hearing-related problems.
Our social enterprise LEVELUP targets an untapped market in Hong Kong of 700,000 people affected by age-related hearing loss that do not currently wear hearing aids. Level Up provides a unique hearing solution that offers quick relief and affordability that comprises of:
(1) A “test kit” that identifies patients with age-related hearing loss. The test kit includes a headphone and a calibrated tablet with pre-installed and in-house developed software; and
(2) A “device” that is a pre-set hearing aid which can fix age-related hearing loss. It costs seven times less than a customized hearing aid prescribed by an audiologist, but reaches same performance for 85% of our user tests.
