Orlando’s Parseval ElectroAcoustical Engineering Selected to Compete in National Science Foundation Worldwide Innovation Contest
ORLANDO, Fla. — Parseval ElectroAcoustical Engineering, a client of the UCF Business Incubator at Central Florida Research Park, is participating in the National Science Foundation (NSF) Hearables Challenge, a worldwide innovation contest.
Pierce Mooney, founder and CEO of the company that develops custom soundscapes for the workplace and advanced audio products for the consumer market, said he is optimistic the results will accelerate time to market since the goal of the challenge directly aligns with the strategic focus of Parseval.
The goal of the National Science Foundation’s the Hearables Challenge is to find solutions such as algorithms or methods to improve clarity of conversation in a noisy setting. Hearing is our primary sense of safety. In today’s workplace, our minds are overstimulated by speech, to the constant detriment of our default state of peace, where we can be extraordinarily productive.
For the 30 million Americans over the age 12 with hearing loss, including veterans, poor acoustical environments are even more problematic. Hearing worsens with age, impairs communication and the devices available today do not address the problem.
“We have some pre-existing algorithms that we are able to adapt for the NSF Hearables Challenge which requires to a near real-time processing time to achieve clear separation of an individual speaker from other speakers and surrounding noise. Although a lot of research has been done, no one to date has created a satisfactory solution. We believe we can be the first to accomplish that,” said Mooney.
The challenge offers an $80,000 first prize and a $60,000 second prize along with an invitation to present at Ubicomp 2017 in Maui Sept.13-15, an event organized in conjunction with the International Symposium on Wearable Computers, bringing together professionals to share information and advances.
The NSF Hearables Challenge comes just weeks after Parseval announced their intent to invent such an algorithm during another NSF program.
An $80,000 first prize and a $60,000 second prize will be awarded to the winners of the Challenge along with an invitation to present at Ubicomp 2017 in Maui Sept.13-15, an event organized in conjunction with the International Symposium on Wearable Computers bringing together professionals to share information and advances.
“We are excited not only about participating in such an important advancement for humanity – the separation of speech from noise for hard-to-hear situations and for the hard of hearing – but also about the worldwide acceleration in this field.
Parseval’s mission is the eradication of noise pollution through Active Noise Control of the 22nd century. Their team of machine learning/algorithm developers work with a core of passionate audio engineers who come from a broad range of academic and professional backgrounds.
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For more information, media contacts –
Pierce Mooney, founder and CEO, Parseval ElectroAcoustical Engineering, 307-217-6863 pierce@parseval.tech
Carol Ann Dykes, Site Manager, UCF Business Incubation Program, 407-207-7426;
Larry Vershel or Beth Payan, Larry Vershel Communications, 407-644-4142, Lvershelco@aol.com
About the UCF Business Incubation Program
The University of Central Florida Business Incubation Program is a community resource that provides early-stage companies with the tools, training and infrastructure to become financially stable, high growth/impact enterprises. Since 1999, this award-winning program has helped over 390 local startup companies reach their potential faster by providing vital business development resources.
With seven facilities throughout the region, the UCF Business Incubation Program is an economic development partnership between the University of Central Florida, the Corridor, Orange, Osceola, Seminole and Volusia Counties, and the cities of Apopka, Kissimmee, Orlando and Winter Springs. For the 2014/15 and 2015/16 fiscal years, the activities of these participating firms have helped to sustain more than 4,710 local jobs and have had a cumulative impact of over $725 million on regional GDP and over $1.3 billion on regional sales. During the same period, the program has returned $7.41 in state and local taxes for every $1.00 invested in the program. For more information, visit www.incubator.ucf.edu.
