Ph.D. Achintya Bhowmik of Starkey Hearing Technologies

Abstract:

With over 466 million people suffering from disabling hearing loss globally according to the World Health Organization, and the number expected to rise to 900 million people by 2050, hearing aids are crucially important medical wearable devices. Untreated hearing loss has been linked to increased risks of social isolation, depression, dementia, fall injuries, and other health issues. However, partly due to a historical stigma associated with assistive devices and its single-function nature, only a small fraction of people who need help with hearing have actually adopted the devices. 

In this talk, we will present a new class of multifunctional in-ear devices with embedded sensors and artificial intelligence. In addition to providing frequency-dependent amplification of sound to compensate for the wearer’s hearing loss, these devices continuously classify sound and enhance speech, serve as a continuous monitor for physical and cognitive activities, an automatic fall detection and alert system, as well as a personal assistant with connectivity to the cloud. Furthermore, these devices allow streaming of phone calls and music with an astounding all-day battery life, translating languages, transcribing speech, and reminding the wearer of medication and other tasks.

Rapid progress in sensors and artificial intelligence is bringing an amazing array of new devices, applications, and user benefits to the world. Now, these technologies are transforming the traditional hearing aids into multipurpose devices, helping people not only hear better, but live better lives in many more ways.

Biography:

Dr. Achin Bhowmik is the chief technology officer and executive vice president of engineering at Starkey, a privately-held medical devices company with over 5,000 employees and operations in over 100 countries. In this role, he is responsible for the company’s technology strategy, global research, product development and engineering departments, and leading the drive to transform hearing aids into multifunction health and communication devices with advanced sensors and artificial intelligence technologies.

Prior to joining Starkey, Dr. Bhowmik was vice president and general manager of the Perceptual Computing Group at Intel Corporation, where he was responsible for the R&D, operations, and businesses in the areas of 3D sensing and interactive computing, computer vision and artificial intelligence, autonomous robots and drones, and immersive virtual and merged reality devices.

Dr. Bhowmik is on the faculty of Stanford University, where he holds an adjunct professor position at the Stanford School of Medicine, advises research, and lectures in the areas of cognitive neuroscience, sensory augmentation, computational perception, and intelligent systems. He has held adjunct and guest professor positions at the University of California, Berkeley, Liquid Crystal Institute of the Kent State University, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, and the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar.

Dr. Bhowmik serves on the board of trustees for the National Captioning Institute, board of directors for OpenCV, industry advisory board for Biomedical Engineering at the University of Minnesota, and board of advisors for the Fung Institute for Engineering Leadership at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also on the board of directors and advisors for several technology startup companies. 

His awards and honors include Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Fellow and President-Elect of the Society for Information Display (SID), Industrial Distinguished Leader award from the Asia-Pacific Signal and Information Processing Association, IEEE Distinguished Industry Speaker award, TIME’s Best Inventions, Red Dot Design award, and the Artificial Intelligence Breakthrough award. He has authored over 200 publications, including two books and 38 issued patents. 

Dr. Bhowmik and his work have been covered in numerous press articles, including TIME, Fortune, Wired, USA Today, US News & World Reports, Wall Street Journal, CBS News, Forbes, Bloomberg Businessweek, Scientific American, Popular Mechanics, MIT Technology Review, among others.

Address:California, United States