From cochlear implants to braille tech: smart sensing event highlights transformative research
The latest Sensing Industry Connect event at Macquarie University showcased cutting-edge collaborations driving innovation in hearing and vision technologies.
The quarterly NSW Smart Sensing Network (NSSN) industry engagement event provides a platform for entrepreneurs, manufacturers, and researchers to connect and explore opportunities in smart sensing technology.
Director of NextSense, Professor Greg Leigh AO.
The event was held at the largest of 18 NextSense facilities across Australia, co-located on campus at Macquarie University.
The organisation is Australia's largest provider of early intervention services for children, adults and families of people with hearing or vision loss.
Director of the NextSense Institute, Professor Greg Leigh AO, described the organisation’s 166-year history, formerly known as the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children, and detailed its wide-ranging services, including early intervention, therapy, and education.
NextSense operates both a school and preschool program on the Macquarie University campus, as well as at multiple locations across Australia.
It is also Australia's largest provider of cochlear implant services.
“NextSense, and its former iteration, now accounts for more than 8,000, surgeries, to provide cochlear implants to Australians, and on an annual basis supports almost 5,000 people with cochlear implants and undertakes at least 400 surgeries a year for the purposes of cochlear implantation,” Professor Leigh said.
Professor Leigh directs the NextSense Institute, which is a centre for research and professional education operated in affiliation with Macquarie University.
“We offer a degree at Macquarie University, the Master of Disability Studies, in which we have currently over 90 students, all of whom will go on to qualify as teachers or early intervention professionals to work with children who are deaf or hard of hearing or blind or have low vision,” he said.
There are almost 20 active research projects operating at the Institute, including an Australian Research Council funded-project to improve accessibility in playground design for children with vision loss, and a 17-year longitudinal study on hearing-impaired children funded by the Australian Cooperative Research Centre and the National Institutes of Health in the US.
“We have a really important project that's been developing systems for people who are blind, or who have low vision, to learn braille online using a remarkable interface technology with normal computer systems and normal keyboards,” Professor Leigh said.
“At last count, we have over 40,000 people around the world who have access to that technology to learn braille, facilitating that important access to print literacy for them wherever they happen to be.”
Academic Director at Macquarie University Hearing, Professor David McAlpine.
Academic Director at Macquarie University Hearing, Professor David McAlpine, described key NSSN smart sensing projects which he said exemplified the innovative and integrated approach of Macquarie University and its partners.
The SOUND-BITES project led by Macquarie University Cochlear Chair in Hearing and Health, Professor Bamini Gopinath, aims to assess hearing in home-delivered meal recipients using accessible hearing technology.
The project is in partnership with the University of Newcastle and industry partners Sound Scouts, Cochlear and Meals on Wheels.
The MOSAIC project led by Research Fellow at Macquarie University Hearing, Dr Kelly Miles, leverages non-auditory sensors—such as those measuring sweat and other physiological signals—to investigate communication breakdowns and develop strategies to restore effective communication.
The project is in partnership with Western Sydney University and industry partners Google Research Australia and Cochlear.
Professor McAlpine also described a pioneering collaboration involving UNSW, Macquarie, Cochlear, and NextSense, where cochlear implants are being used for gene therapy delivery and monitoring its effectiveness—a significant example of smart sensing technology.
The next Sensing Industry Connect event will be held at ANU in Canberra on 11 August.