Betty wins worldwide contest to help deaf people

AN eight-year-old Lymm girl has won a top prize in a worldwide competition for children to design something to make deaf people’s lives easier.
Betty Seabrook, a pupil at Ravenbank Primary School was the UK winner in the Ideas4Ears competition organised by hearing implant makers Med-el.
Together with nine other winners – from nine different countries – she has won a trip to Innsbruck, Austria, where Med-el’s headquarters are.
While there she will meet other young inventors from all over the world and also the experts who design various types of hearing implants
A total of 341 children from 19 countries entered the competition.
Betty’s father, Tom, has a cochlear implant himself and cannot wear a cycle helmet as the band would go right where the implant sits.
The bright youngster designed a cycle helmet with lift-out foam panels on either side. These were adjustable, as not everyone’s implant is in the same place.
It could also be adapted for use by motor cyclists, as a ski-helmet or even for hard hats for builders.
Betty said: “”I can’t explain how it feels, I am so happy. I didn’t expect to win. I’m really excited about the trip because it is the first time I will have been on a plane and I am really looking forward to seeing Austria. I want my dad to wear a bike helmet but he can’t without taking his processor off which would be more dangerous. My bike helmet has a foam lining and I just thought why can’t we make one with space for an implant?”
She will go on her dream trip in June.