What does that recognition mean to you? Well,

it really means a lot.

And to get this award from this generous man, Mr. Merkin, shows that it is important to develop, not only develop technology, but develop technology that ultimately helps people and improves human lives.

And such a development over many, many years, the technology has greatly improved during the past decades, can only be the result of hard work, collaborative work of teams from different disciplines.

And the teams consist of researchers, scientists, developers, of course, surgeons, audiologists, therapists, And one main part of it is also the users.

And this has led to a technology that's now used by, as I said already, more than a million people of all ages from very young to very old.

And one aspect also is that the technology is now developed to an extent that it can be individualized to the individual patient.

So how do you plan to use the recognition from winning the Merkin Prize in the advancement of your work going forward?

So based on that, what does the next generation of hearing technology, what could it look like?

Well, there are many directions, actually, because hearing loss is individual.

It's as individual as people themselves.

And there are various solutions for various people and different sizes of the cochlea and so on.

There will be gentler surgery and electrode designs.

There is improved preservation.

of the inner ear, smarter systems, more seamless hearing solutions.

And how do you plan to use its recognition in the advancement of what we're talking about, of your next work?

First of all, what is a cochlear implant, for people who don't know and they just heard my elementary explanation, and how is it different from a hearing aid?

Well, in cases of a severe hearing loss, the sensory hair cells in the inner ear may no longer transmit sound effectively.

Thus, a hearing aid is of no help anymore.

However, a cochlear implant bypasses those damaged cells, and it converts sound into electrical signals and delivers them to the auditory nerve.

The brain learns to interpret those signals and interprets it as sound and speech, or music even too.

Yeah.

Now it's more than a million of people who, uh, benefit from cochlear implants every day, and to be a part of that achievement feels really, really worth it.

Mm-hmm.

So what, first of all, what is a cochlear implant, for people who don't know and they just heard my elementary explanation, and how is it different from a hearing aid?

Well, in cases of a severe hearing loss, the sensory hair cells in the inner ear may no longer transmit sound effectively.

Thus, a hearing aid is of no help anymore.

However, a cochlear implant bypasses those damaged cells, and it converts sound into electrical signals and delivers them to the auditory nerve.

The brain learns to interpret those signals, and interprets it as sound and speech, or music even.

Yeah.

And to be a part of that achievement feels really, really worth it.

And let me add just this.