New mobile app for the hard of hearing
April 9, 2020
You can’t keep running away from your fears. Eventually, you will have to confront them.
Humiliated after her high school coach, in the presence of other track and field athletes, suggested she might try turning up her hearing aid volume, Eyra Abraham quit the sport and covered her ears and identity for many years.
It was not until recently at ‘Stand Up for Passion’ that’s a live series event that provides a platform to share inspirational stories that she publicly revealed for the first time that she was diagnosed with hearing loss at age three.
“Prior to the event which was my first speaking engagement, I went through an assertive training class and realized that I wasn’t authentic by not revealing my disability,” said Abraham who has a Computer Science degree from McGill University and a Master’s in Tourism & Events Management from Bournemouth University. “At ‘Stand Up for Passion’, then is when I revealed it. I surprised a lot of people because I was good at keeping my hair long, hiding my ears and really playing the game. When people wondered why I didn’t hear them well, I always had a line like, ‘I wasn’t paying attention’. In many ways, I wished I hadn’t waited this long.”
In 2017, she created a startup – Lisnen – that’s developing a mobile application that will connect people with hearing loss to the hearing world through alert notifications for critical sounds, including fire alarms and sirens.
“Lisnen is all about helping the deaf and hard of hearing manage the situation where sound is been used often to sort of communicate,” said Abraham. “Let’s take the fire alarm which is a big concern for people with a profound hearing loss. If we don’t have our hearing aids or any other assistive device, we miss out. Sometimes, it may be life threatening or just an opportunity. Other times, it creates anxiety for people. Rather than the traditional method of buying and creating a hardware device that is big and bulky and requires a lot of setting up, we will allow people to use their mobile application that has all the features and tools to be able to process and do the same job. With the new software, I am trying to expand the reach and opportunity for people to have a solution.
“In many ways, Lisnen is trying to empower the deaf and hard of hearing community by bringing in modern technology that really can help to improve the quality of their lifestyles which is really important as we tend to have products and services that are not fulfilling our needs.”
Since founding the company, Abraham has taken part in several pitch contests to secure funds to support her start up. Last February, she won the $15,000 business grant at the annual Black Arts & Innovation Exposition in Toronto.
In the five-minute presentation, she focused on the benefits of the application and the business model.
“This is a huge opportunity,” Abraham said. “I have been in many competitions since 2017, and I always fell short. As an entrepreneur, I have been working to perfect my message while trying to understand my business model a little bit better. This win is a reward for all the practice and learning I have done.”
As specified by the organizers, $5,000 is to be used for advertising on Facebook.
The remainder will go towards improving the application that’s expected to be launched later this year.
“Because I am building a product that uses artificial intelligence, it requires a lot of skill sets and audio engineering and processing beyond the skills I can provide,” noted the former McGill University African Student Society Finance Vice-President. “When I started this business, I hadn’t been in computer science for a while. I pivoted into a whole completely different career. When I wanted to develop this app, I went looking for people, but it was very challenging. I had to learn a lot of programming myself, but there is only so much I can do in terms of time and I have to get help now from people with transferable skill sets who have been working with hearing aids or any kind of audio processing technologies that transfer sound into a digital format and process it.”
Once the application is downloaded, consumers can use their mobile phone microphone to listen for specific sounds.
“Think of it like Alexa or Siri (voice-activated helpers) for the deaf and hard of hearing,” pointed out Abraham. “It is literally listening for sound in the background and once it picks up a specific sound like fire alarms, door bells and knocks, vehicle horns, sirens and baby cries, the user will get a vibration and flashing alert using the camera flashlight to alert them so they know and can react to what’s happening in their environment.”
Eyra Abraham
The application, which is also paired with smart watches that will allow users the vibration and notification, will complement hearing aid devices.
“For some people with a higher level of hearing loss, the hearing aid does provide some sound, but they can’t probably hear a lot of things and this app will help them in that instance,” she said. “When I am having a conversation with someone using my hearing aid, I can hear really well. But at night, I take my aids off and that is because they are expensive and I want to maximize the use by putting them away for a couple of hours. Also, you want to keep them dry because you are dealing with humidity and if I wear hearing aids 24/7, I can develop ear infections and wax build up that would add to the hearing loss. For that reason, I don’t wear my hearing aids all the time, but I am also vulnerable to not be able to hear sounds. In that case, this application will be helpful.”
According to the World Health Organization, about 466 million people have disabling hearing loss and they estimate that by 2050, the number will rise to 900 million.
Born in Omaha, Nebraska four decades ago while her father was pursuing a PhD, Abraham – who was raised in Nova Scotia -- did ballet, swimming and gymnastics and played the piano until Grade 12.
“Because of my hearing disability, my parents wanted me to get out and challenge myself in all kinds of environments,” she said.
After completing her graduate degree 13 years ago and working in England for three years, Abraham returned to Canada in 2009 and was employed with the City of Toronto as a Marketing Supervisor and the Ontario Treasury Board Secretariat as an IT Communications Specialist before starting Lisnen.
“This is my baby and passion now,” she said.
Abraham is a member of a family of high achievers.
Oldest sister Belinda Abraham, who was born in Illinois, is the East Meets West/Thrive Networks Vietnam Country Director & Regional Program Director and Ghanaian-born Hermie Abraham is a Labour & Employment lawyer.
Their father, Dr. Isaac Abraham, was a Dalhousie University lecturer, and his wife, Rose, has a Biochemistry degree.
