AI for the big stage
TU alumnus wins Emmy Award for audio technology
2024/12/20 by Mareike Hochschild
Benjamin Graf studied Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at TU Darmstadt, then worked for two years in a hearing aid technology company, set up his own business and finally founded the start-up ‘Accentize’. When you listen to the 34-year-old talk about how his path took shape, this year's Emmy Award in Los Angeles seems only logical.
During his studies, he could never have imagined that he would one day win an Emmy with one of his software applications. ‘To be honest, I didn't even know what an Emmy was for a long time,’ says Benjamin Graf. The Emmy is the most important television award in the USA, which is not only awarded to the actors in US television series, but also to developers of TV technology used in series production. The award fits naturally into his CV. This may be because Graf is very clear. ‘It's nice when it looks like that to the outside world,’ he laughs. After completing his studies, he initially worked as an employee for two years, gaining experience and coming to a realisation: ‘I wanted to work more freely and try out more in the field of AI. That's difficult and slow in large companies.’ He developed his first products as a freelancer and sole trader in signal processing.
‘I didn't realise it at the time, but now I can see quite clearly how it all fits together and how my hobby and my studies have come together.’ He has always made, recorded and produced music himself. He started working with software that he had already used as a child and founded his start-up Accentize in 2019. ‘dxRevive Pro’ is the name of the product that he launched in September 2023 and for which he was honoured with the Emmy Award in October of this year. The programme detects disturbing background noise and attenuates it so that the recording in the foreground achieves studio quality. ‘To do this, I recorded a lot of background noise and different speakers to feed the AI.’ The effort has paid off: his product is used by American film and production companies as well as public broadcasters in Germany. He has found his niche and also an agency that specialises in marketing audio programmes and has realised that it is worth applying for an Emmy.
He was honoured with the ‘76th Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy® Award’ and invited to Los Angeles. ‘It was strange to be at such an event as a private individual together with big companies like Adobe. I felt a bit lost at first, but then I quickly got chatting to the other guests and award winners and was able to enjoy the evening.’ Who do you actually thank as a one-man start-up? He laughs again. ‘It's actually not that easy, but I thanked my intern, who really was a huge help with the development. I also thanked the agency for the submission and my partner, who unfortunately couldn't come along because our son was born in the summer.’
And now what? What comes after the Emmy Award? Again, he is very clear: ‘At the moment, I'm not focussing on growth. I would need more employees for that, but I don't see myself as a boss. Would a sale be an option? ‘No, I want to be able to develop freely and don't want to be talked into it. At the moment, I want to concentrate on supporting my customers.’
However, he would like to develop something for the music industry at some point – a question of time (editor's assessment).
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