Homayoun: “You Need an Inner Passion”
6 Nov 2023
Homayoun Kamkar Parsi is Head of Signal Processing, Algorithmic Research, and Neural Networks based in Erlangen, Germany. He joined WSA 14 years ago. He is a visionary through and through and never loses sight of his goal. One of his visions from a long time ago has just been realized with the Signia IX products. Here is more.
They now help you hear better multiple conversation partners in noisy environments, even as they move. A unique end-user benefit powered by numerous integrated breakthrough benefits. But it is also important to him: This is not a one-person show. Many highly qualified colleagues & teams were involved over the years in many aspects. “We succeeded together.”
His passion
“It’s a personal drive; you need an inner passion, and innovation never stops when you’re naturally like that. I’m always looking for better solutions. Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night and know how to do it, but it can also be a burden: you don’t really sleep :-). I believe in these ideas; you can always work on them in parallel 😉. My mother is hard of hearing. She never wanted to wear hearing aids. It wasn’t until I designed some of the pieces back with Narrow Directionality that she finally accepted and started to use them. This probably contributes to my inner passion as well.”
Never give up
“Of course, you face many challenges for many good reasons. But that’s how you start on a new, challenging path. It’s a long process; by long, I mean this latest innovation started in 2014, nine years ago! When I have a vision, I do everything I can to make it happen, work tremendously, give 150%, never give up, and most importantly, I need to bring people on board during this journey. You should always be open to small opportunities that come up and go for it. Sometimes, reaching a goal can take years and different milestones, even setbacks, so perseverance is key.”
Getting better and better
“This latest innovation in Signia IX is a good example of getting better along the way. As I said, I started thinking about this in 2014, which we have only now finished. There have been many important milestones, from “narrow directionality” to “own voice processing” to “split processing” and more. We got smarter and developed better solutions with each of these milestones, and the technology fundamentals, such as chip generations, also advanced. So, one thing led to another, and everything was perfected to the current result over time. And there’s more to come.”