Hong Kong’s ACE HEARING is the winner of the ‘Community Impact’ Award at this year’s ‘Talent Unleashed Awards,’ held at the W Hotel last week. For the first time ever, the ceremony took place simultaneously in Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney and Auckland in a live broadcast.
The legendary likes of Richard Branson, Steve Wozniak and our own Yat Siu made up the judging panel helping awards organisers ‘Talent International’ sift through 600+ entries across the region. The final six winners will take a whirlwind trip down to the Branson Centre for Entrepreneurship in South Africa for a five-day workshop come November.
We had a chat with ACE HEARING’s co-founder Paul Lee to find out more about the big win. Besides bringing public attention to the importance of hearing health, Paul said that the results of this year’s ‘Talent Unleashed’ also puts Hong Kong startups, who he considers a “best kept secret,” in the limelight.
“The real win is not the award that ACE HEARING won, although I’m not complaining, but the sheer number of finalists that are from Hong Kong: Cashyou, Gatecoin, Green Tomato and WHub,” he said. “By my count, Hong Kong is the top city by the number of finalists and that speaks volumes about the breadth and depth of the local startup scene.”
Using self-administered hearing tests to determine each user’s unique needs, ACE HEARING reshapes the device’s audio output so the hearing impaired can hear at more succinct levels. The app empowers the hearing impaired by, in some cases, eliminating the need for hearing aids.
With patents, clinical trials and medical journal publications under their belt, ACE HEARING will be launching their first consumer app called ‘CrystalPlayer’ in the next few weeks. “Users will be able to map out their hearing print and reshape their music on the device to provide the best tailored listening experience for each ear,” said Paul.
Daniel Chan of Cashyou, Aurelien Menant of Gatecoin, Karen Farzam of Whub.HK and Sunny Kok of Green Tomato also took home regional prizes in the competition.
Join us in congratulating our startups in all their success – way to represent for Hong Kong!
More photos from the event:
ACE HEARING on Startbase.HK: ACE HEARING
Paul Lee on Startbase.HK: Paul Lee
