Voicebot names Dr. Patricia Scanlon a “Visionary in Voice”
December 8, 2020
CEO and Founder Dr. Patricia Scanlon was today recognized as a “Visionary In Voice” by Voicebot.ai, the voice industry’s leading publication.
Patricia (Trish) is sixth on Voicebot’s list of 17 global leaders, a list that includes the CEOs and Founders of companies like Amazon, Google, SoundHound, Viv Labs, and Cerence.
In including Trish on their prestigious list, Voicebot noted that:
“Many people are aware that automatic speech recognition (ASR) often struggles with accented speech. What few people recognize is that ASR faces similar challenges when interpreting speech from children. The unexpected pronunciation and grammar combinations lead to higher rates of failed interactions than for adults. SoapBox Labs is focused on solving this problem.
“Dr. Patricia Scanlon earned a Ph.D. in speech recognition from the University College Dublin in 2005 and later was a lecturer at Trinity College and researcher for Bell Laboratories and Alcatel-Lucent. She founded SoapBox Labs in 2013 after realizing that her own young children faced challenges interacting with voice assistants. SoapBox delivers customized ASR technology built for performance and privacy. Scanlon put children on the map for voice assistants, and the company is now working with several high profile educational institutions and toymakers.”
Acknowledging the recognition, Trish commented: “I’m honored to be included on this list of Visionaries in Voice and would like to thank everyone on the team at SoapBox Labs for helping to solidify our position as the leading voice solution for kids on the market in 2020.”
Thanks to Bret Kinsella and his team at Voicebot for this honor. We look forward to a bright and brilliantly exciting 2021 for our team and for all of our entertainment and education company partners globally.
About SoapBox Labs
Founded in Dublin, Ireland, in 2013, SoapBox Labs powers accurate, safe, and age-appropriate voice experiences for 2-12 year old kids. Our proprietary technology is modeled on kids’ speech, language, and behaviors, and is independently verified by The Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) and MIT Media Lab for its extremely high levels of accuracy.
The voice technology used in mobile phones or other devices isn’t nearly sophisticated enough to be used with children. SoapBox Labs has spent the last seven years developing voice technology with the levels of privacy and performance kids, their teachers, and their parents need. Our SoapBox Fluency solution, launched in 2020, is the first of its kind to power voice-enabled remote reading fluency assessments for kids in grades 1-6. SoapBox Fluency delivers 95% accuracy, a level comparable to that of human assessors.
Third-party entertainment companies use our technology to voice-enable smart toys, games, apps, and robots. We also power voice-enabled education tools specifically in the area of literacy and English language learning assessments and practice. Customers include Amplify (edtech), MIT Media Lab (robotics), and FCRR (edtech).
SoapBox Labs was one of Wired UK’s hottest startups of 2019 and receives regular coverage in industry leading publications like TechCrunch, Forbes, Voicebot, and EdSurge. The company was founded by CEO Dr. Patricia Scanlon, one of Forbes Top 50 Women in Tech globally in 2018.
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