Contact

The Oticon Foundation shares office space with William Demant Holding and Oticon, headquartered on top of a beautiful hill in Smørum, west of Copenhagen.

The Oticon Foundation
Kongebakken 9
2765 Smørum
Telephone: +45 3917 7100
Fax: +45 3927 7900

Email: fonden@oticon.dk

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, which focuses on education and research with special emphasis on the role and work of dispensers who are involved in the fitting of hearing aids. The Ida Institute also develops tools, seminars and activities for specialists, general practitioners and healthcare staff.

International knowledge
By collecting and disseminating knowledge, tools and experience from the best researchers, audiologists and dispensers worldwide, the Ida Institute accomplishes its purpose, which is to support dispensers in their endeavours to help people suffering from hearing impairment to live a good and full life using a hearing aid. The Ida Institute is located at Nærum north of Copenhagen.

IDeAs
In 2012, the Ida Institute heads up a campaign, IDeAs, encouraging people to take action on hearing loss and to put hearing loss on the public agenda. The project involves hearing care professionals, students, patients, families and the general public. The Oticon Foundation provides financial support for this important campaign.

Read more about the IDeA campaign 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.