SNU College of Engineering Hosts a Meet-up with the Cochlear Implant Users


▲ Participants of the SNU & Cochlear Implant Users Club (CIUC) Meeting

 
On November 17^th, SNU College of Engineering (Dean Kook Heon Char) invited the graduate students of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, SNU Institute for Global Social Responsibility (SNUSR), and the Cochlear Implant Users Club (CIUC) to a meet-up.
 
This event gathered the students enrolled in the graduate course called Neural Prosthesis taught by Professor Sung June Kim (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering) and the CIUC members to discuss and exchange their stories and information on the cochlear implant.
 
This was the first time for such a large number of cochlear implant researchers and users to gather at a single event. The meeting was hosted at a hall at Building 39 of College of Engineering on November 17^th. The meet-up was followed by a small music performance by the student musicians of the Department of Korean Music.
 
Cochlear implant is an electronic device that is surgically implanted to those with severe hearing impairment. While the current device provides a level of hearing equivalent to that of everyday conversation, there has to be more research conducted to allow the device to recognize natural sound, especially musical patterns.
 
Professor Kim who had organized this meet-up stated, “It was a great opportunity to listen to the inconveniences that cochlear implant users have whilst using the device. It definitely was a rewarding experience and we plan to continue these meet-ups to provide human-centered engineering technologies to those in need.”
 
Meanwhile, a total of 64 participants have gathered on this day including 24 CIUC members, 24 College of Engineering students, 9 student musicians from SNU College of Music and Korea National University of Arts, and 7 invited guests.