The Oticon Foundation

The Oticon Foundation is a commercial foundation whose main purpose is to safeguard and develop the commercial activities of William Demant Holding and William Demant Invest and to sponsor charitable causes. The Oticon Foundation whose official name is William Demants og Hustru Ida Emilies Fond was established in 1957 by William Demant, son of the Company's founder Hans Demant.

Focus areas
Focusing on projects to promote research and dissemination of knowledge about audiology, the Oticon Foundation has during the last ten years sponsored a number of different causes with more than 700 million Danish kroner. However, the Oticon Foundation has also been a major contributor to young people's education, to social projects targeted at marginalised groups of people and to initiatives with a view to furthering art and culture.

Donations
For the past ten years, the Oticon Foundation has among other projects sponsored Danish PhD students with more than 38 million Danish kroner. Also, the Foundation has co-founded The Mary Foundation (Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Mary's Foundation) that works to fight social isolation.

The Mary Foundation

The Oticon Foundation is a co-founder of the Mary Foundation with a donation of 10 million Danish kroner in 2007 and another 10 million in 2011. The Foundation was founded by Her Royal Highness, Crown Princess Mary of Denmark. The objective of the Foundation is to prevent social isolation by helping children and adults who experience loneliness, bullying or domestic violence.

The Mary Foundation’s focus projects
The focus projects include the prevention of loneliness suffered by students in youth education programmes, an anti-bullying programme aimed at the three to eight-year olds and a backpack programme for children at women’s shelters who will each receive a backpack containing a toothbrush, pyjamas and a teddy bear.

Hearing clinic in South Africa

In 2010, the Oticon Foundation funded a hearing clinic in Xanthia, a village in eastern South Africa. The hearing clinic includes all the equipment necessary to diagnose a hearing loss as well as hearing aids donated by Oticon to help the many Africans in the local area who have not previously had the chance to do something about their hearing loss.

Volunteers run the clinic
The hearing clinic is run by humanitarian audiologists from Texas in the USA and students from South African universities who have the opportunity to train their skills at the hearing clinic. The clinic is situated in the Mpumalanga province, where 60% of the population does not have access to clean drinking water, and where unemployment rates in some areas are as high as 85%.

Global Foundation in Vietnam

Since 2010, through its support of the Global Foundation for Children with Hearing Loss, the Oticon Foundation has helped improve conditions for Vietnamese children suffering from hearing loss. The Global Foundation develops training programmes for parents and teachers, who deal with hearing-impaired children on a daily basis, and also helps children get easier access to hearing aids.

The woman behind the Global Foundation
The woman behind the Global Foundation is Paige Stringer, an American who herself from a very early age suffered from impaired hearing. Paige left her executive job in 2008 and soon after founded the Global Foundation. Today, 38 Vietnamese schools have joined the training programme offered by the Foundation. The future aim is to be able to help even more of the 180,000 children in Vietnam, who suffer from hearing impairment.

Ida Institute

Since 2007, the Oticon Foundation has contributed a total of 79 million Danish kroner to the formation and operation of the Ida Institute. The Ida Institute creates and shares innovative, actionable knowledge to help foster a better understanding of the human dynamics associated with hearing loss. The institute’s tools, seminars, workshops and educational materials enable hearing care professionals to help hearing impaired persons address the psychological and social challenges of hearing loss. Learn more about the Ida Institute here.

Ideas: Speak Up – Action and Awareness for Hearing Loss
In 2012, the Oticon Foundation and the Ida Institute will work together to launch “ideas” – a global online competition to create ideas to inspire action and raise awareness for hearing loss. More than 250 million people worldwide suffer from hearing loss, yet previous attempts to raise awareness about hearing loss have not had a great impact. This global collaborative effort will find ideas to raise awareness for hearing loss and encourage persons with hearing loss to take action and live life to the fullest. The Oticon Foundation initiates and funds the competition and the Ida Institute facilitates the initiative. Learn more here.

Denmark’s Technical University

Based on our wish to support the education of young people, the Oticon foundation has for many years granted substantial support to the Technical University of Denmark (DTU).

Ceremonial hall and residential hall
In the year 2000, the Oticon Foundation awarded 35 million Danish kroner to a ceremonial hall and a residential hall at the DTU campus in Lyngby north of Copenhagen. The Oticon Hall was designed by architect Kim Utzon. The Oticon Foundation also allocated five million kroner to a foundation whose proceeds contribute to help keep down the rent at the William Demant Kollegiet (residence hall). Both projects were completed in 2002.

Centre for Applied Hearing Research
With a donation of 17 million Danish kroner, the Oticon Foundation helped establish the Centre for Applied Hearing Research at the DTU’s Ørsted•DTU institute. The Centre is to strengthen the DTU’s hearing-related education and research through acoustic and audiological research at international level. The Oticon Foundation awards research funds to the Ørsted•DTU institute once a year.

Student funding programme

Since 2000, the Oticon Foundation has supported Danish Ph.d. students with over 38 million Danish kroner. Once a year, the Foundation grants two Ph.d. awards of 1.5 million kroner to qualified students at Danish universities.

The Foundation also awards 20 scholarships worth a total of two million kroner a year to students working on their theses in either natural science or engineering at Danish universities.