Waking Up To Deafness Jake Bishop has just graduated with First Class Honours from Northumbria University. A few days from his 21st Birthday in October 23, Jake was assaulted in Newcastle Upon Tyne city centre. The assault left Jake profoundly deaf in both ears. When the audiologist revealed his hearing wasn’t coming back - he was a very broken young man. Facing the unknown and very dark times, Jake feared he would never hear his family, music, finish University, travel, work - his world turned upside down and his life was on hold for a year. A lifeline was thrown when he was fast tracked for a cochlear implant. From that moment, Jake embraced his ‘gifts’ and hasn’t looked back. He wants people to have conversations that help them to ‘wake up to deafness’ by taking on challenges that are out of his comfort zone to raise awareness of sudden hearing loss. Being only new to the deaf world Jake’s conversation is only getting started. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx