What We Do

The Sound Advice (formerly IDK) website was established in July 2007 with seed-finance from Social Entrepreneurs Ireland. In 2010, the former IDK entity received Ireland’s eGovernment award (Education) for promoting cross-sector collaboration and cost-efficiency in the public sector. Sound Advice is now self-financed by diversified income streams.

Our Tagline

Hearing meets Technology.

Our Mission Statement

Sound Advice highlights hearing tech and digital tools for children, students and graduates to use in their mainstream education, living and working lives. We also guide parents, educators, policymakers and employers on tech as a leveller.

In a nutshell, here’s what we do …

The Sound Advice lean venture is innovative for:

• Providing Ireland’s first online resource for mainstream educating deaf infants, children and students
• Supporting a mainstream user-base with disparate views, approaches and interests
• Building an online community for inclusive education of deaf children and young people
• Advising on spoken language development for deaf infants and children
• Monitoring international trends for educating deaf children and students
• Identifying new teaching techniques and tools for use in all classrooms
• Relying on volunteers and interns in place of permanent, paid staff
• Investigating possible public-private partnerships for future projects
• Linking the business, academic and community sectors for social benefit
• Tracking digital tools in everyday access for people with hearing issues
• Participating in hackathons and tech accelerators, including Wayra Ireland and NDRC Launchpad

 

Sound Advice’s aims are achieved through these activities:

• Award-winning website service for parents, educators, tech firms and researchers
• Conferences, information and training sessions for core stakeholders
• Accessibility assessments for digital tools and built environments
• PR and outreach about hearing difficulties, services and the daily challenges
• Positive messaging to show what deaf children, students and graduates can achieve
• Facebook page and monthly e-zine with news and website updates
• Workshops for young people
• Self-financing the venture
• Childrens’ book and app, about deafness in social situations
• Input to international framework documents for the educational and social sectors
• Contributing articles to business, academic and social-sector publications

 

We are busy, but we like it that way!