A miniature digital speech corrector placed in the ear is his latest brainchild. He is sure we will soon see the development of equally small mobile phones worn in the ear. Prof. Andrzej Czyżewski (pictured) thinks nothing is impossible.

Electronic systems developed by Czyżewski have turned out to be instant successes: they are innovative and fulfill a need. The inventor is showered with international awards and recognition. He is fascinated by sound and image engineering-a branch of electronics which Gdańsk University of Technology started working on 20 years ago. Czyżewski studied in the electronics department there and after graduation stayed on as a research worker.

Czyżewski began to develop innovative projects from the start of his academic career. These included microprocessor telephone exchanges. Some of his other solutions, like wireless phone systems, are still being produced with modifications. And his sound signaling systems for the blind can be found at zebra crossings in18 big Polish cities.

An important moment in Czyżewski's life was meeting Prof. Henryk Skarżyński, a hearing pathology specialist. This meeting triggered the long-dormant idea to make something people really needed and led to the development of computer-based systems for hearing, sight and speech tests. The systems have been applied on a large scale in close cooperation with the Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing in Warsaw. Since 2000 around 350,000 schoolchildren in Poland have had hearing tests using this system. His system of sight testing has been made available online to users in 65 countries. The systems have been named in Frankfurt as Europe's best multimedia product as well as being recognized in the Internet Nobel competition in Stockholm, modeled on the Nobel Prize. They also won a gold medal and the Grand Prix cup at the Eureka World Exhibition of Innovation in Brussels in 2002.

A really stunning product of great social importance is a digital device which can cure 85 percent of stuttering patients. The first device of this kind in the world, it employs both spectral transposition and speech sound lag.

The speech aid corrector produces instant results-speech fluency improves as soon as the device is turned on. Clinical tests had been so promising that the Foundation for Polish Science (FNP) funded, as part of the Techne program to support new technology, the production of 100 speech aid sets in 2002. They are now used by Polish clinics for children with psychological and learning difficulties.

In 2004, the Platan telecommunications company based in Sopot started production of a miniaturized version of the corrector, which fits into the patient's ear. Several months earlier, the prototype of the device, a kind of a subminiature computer developed by Czyżewski and his doctoral students, had been awarded a silver medal and certificate at the largest French industrial exhibition organized as part of Concours Lepine in Paris. The device processes sounds in the spectral domain in such a way that a stutterer, hearing their own voice, has the impression that it's coming from another person. The whole process of speech perception, processing and reconstruction takes place in an electronic system the size of a matchhead.

The professor is using the experience gathered when developing this device in his latest project-an innovative artificial voice box using digital technology. He is also building a specialist testing and certification laboratory called an acoustic anechoic chamber. Professor Czyżewski has launched a television station at Gdańsk University of Technology which has become a platform for distance learning-the project is being run by a consortium of six Polish universities of technology. Recently, the professor and his team have been working to create an acoustic map of Poland-the researchers have proposed a system which transforms a computer into a noise meter using advances in information and telecommunication technology.

Czyżewski is now creating a multimedia library reconstructing archival recordings and films. His reconstruction methods helped launch a European project in the 6th Framework Programme. In this program, he is cooperating with such media giants as BBC and RAI.

And what does the professor say about all that? "I have turned 50 and I have not accomplished as much as others," he says modestly about himself. In fact, his achievements would fill a book. In addition, he has eight Polish patents to his credit, four international patent applications and more than 10 documented applications. For more than 10 years Czyżewski has been head of the Multimedia Systems Department. Thanks to his enormous activity, Gdańsk University of Technology has acquired new computer laboratories and multimedia broadcast registration studios with the latest digital equipment. He has initiated a doctoral course which he now supervises. He has supervised around 100 MSc and six doctoral theses. He has published more than 330 research papers, more than 40 of them in prestigious foreign journals. He has written two books. The second one, Computer Technology in Audiology, Phoniatrics and Speech Therapy, is the first extensive publication on this subject not only in Poland, but in the world.

The world's largest research society of sound engineers has awarded him the prestigious title of Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society. In January 2007, he was also honored with the Heweliusz Award for his research and application achievements in multimedia technologies. This award, called the Gdańsk Nobel Prize, has been granted to outstanding scientists for 20 years.

The professor spends his few leisure moments on the island of Bornholm, cycling and mulling over possible ways to miniaturize the mobile phone so that it can be worn in the ear. And he has no doubts that this can be achieved.
Danuta Górecka