Volunteers are the backbone of the foundation

The Hear the World Foundation has a global volunteering program in which Sonova Group employees and selected external experts support our project partners worldwide. In the year 2022/23 volunteers performed a total of 1,320 hours of work on 59 assignments over 160 days.

 

The Sonova Group’s global volunteering program provides needs- and skills-based support in the areas of audiology, strategy, operations, and communications and marketing, thus promoting professionalization and knowledge building among our local partners. The following examples highlight this approach.

 

Malawi – AUDIOLOGY

Since 2011, the Hear the World Foundation has supported the African Bible College in Lilongwe with training audiologists. The foundation was able to recruit four Sonova employees from Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland to revise course materials and teach online. Eight BSc students took advantage of the offer.

 

El Salvador and Cambodia – STRATEGY

The foundation now offers support from volunteers in the area of strategy. Sonova employees support one project team each, in El Salvador and Cambodia, and are developing business plans to help local partners function more independently in the future.

 

Peru – OPERATIONS

A cloud warehouse engineer from Sonova Canada developed a program that enables the collection and management of patient data along the entire supply chain, improving reporting to the foundation. The application will be used in other projects in the future.

 

Brazil – COMMUNICATIONS/MARKETING

A Sonova employee from Brazil, himself a cochlear implant user, visited the aid project in Peru together with the director and the program manager and documented this with photos and videos, which are now used for communications related to this project.

Interview

Data for the future 

 

Data collection along the entire hearing health value chain is one of the Hear the World Foundation’s strategic goals. A 35-year-old cloud warehouse engineer from Sonova Canada developed a program that enables the collection and management of patient data along the entire supply chain, improving reporting to the foundation.

 

Quang Huy Thieu Cloud warehouse engineer, developer of cutting-edge analytics platforms. Certified as a Microsoft solution expert, he is driving innovation in the field

 

What is the challenge in programming such a database?

The task entails comprehending the business process driving the data, constructing the database, and quickly acquiring the necessary programming skills.

 

What benefit does the foundation derive from the data?

To gain insight from previously paper-based data that are now centralized in the database, which allows a more thorough management of activities.

 

You spent twice as much time as budgeted. What is motivating you?

I have in mind those who will reap the benefits from this project.

Assignments 2022/23

Volunteers contribute to various tasks in the areas of audiology, strategy, operations, communications and marketing, and support the professionalization and knowledge building of our local partners.

 

Field of expertise

Audiology
Strategy
Communications/Marketing
Operations

Work location

Americas
EMEA
APAC
International

Assignment locations

On-site
Remote
Both

Volunteers 2022/23

The Hear the World team and our local project partners would like to give a big, heartfelt round of applause and thank all volunteers who have supported our work benefiting children with hearing loss in 2022/23.

 

Ahmad Baghdadi, Isabelle Baumann,Anna Biggins,Timo Blanc, Cristiane Castilho,Kalyan Dasari, Alexis Desjardins,Pascal Desponds, Thiago Diniz, Jacqueline Drexler, Vincenzo Galvano, Charlotte Gordon, Kuraisha Govender, John Grose, Avinash Grubb, Benjamin Heldner, Ananya Herbert, Jennifer Hoffmann, Quang Huy Thieu, Christiane Jelinek, Sunil Kapoor, Hollyn Keller, Florian Kissel, Peter Kossek, Stefan Launer, Marcos Machado, Ramu Madnala, Meera Manirajan, Carla Marques, Kirsten Mills, Barbara Muench, Johanna Nelson, Mai Nguyen, Yohana Onyango, Angela Pelosi, Mithila Poonacha, Carina Rodriguez, Pat Roush, Joanne Sahdeo, Hussain Salmi, Sam Sambi, Bibin SB, Jean Anne Schnittker, Ghufran Smadi, Chase Smith, Hany Taha, Bettina Turnbull, Marcos Yamada

Contributions since 2013

Sonova launched the global volunteering program nearly ten years ago. Since 2013, 410 dedicated Sonova group volunteers have contributed 1,777 days of work to our foundation, adding up to over 14,000 volunteer hours. 

 

Number of volunteers (cumulative)
Support in days (cumulative)

> 14 000 hours

volunteered by Sonova Group employees