Dr. Patricia Scanlon

In 2022, the Irish Government appointed Dr. Patricia Scanlon Ireland’s first AI Ambassador. Dr. Scanlon is also the founder and Executive Chair of SoapBox Labs, now the world’s leading provider of award winning Voice AI for children. Dr. Scanlon holds a PhD and has 25 years experience working in Artificial Intelligence and speech recognition, including at Bell Labs and IBM. An acclaimed TEDx speaker, in 2018 Dr. Scanlon was named one of the world’s top 50 women in tech by Forbes and a top “Visionary in Voice” by Voicebot in 2020. She is a contributor to Forbes, TheNextWeb and TechCrunch. 

SoapBox was founded by Dr. Scanlon in 2013, inspired by the needs of her oldest child, Dr. Scanlon envisioned how Voice AI could deliver immersive, frictionless, digital experiences for kids of every age and accent. The award winning SoapBox engine is proprietary and has been built from the ground up to power immersive and unbiased digital experiences for children ages 2 to 12 of every accent, dialect and stage of development. SoapBox is a privacy-first and equity-by-design company. In October 2022, SoapBox became the first AI company to be certified for Prioritizing Racial Equity in AI Design by Digital Promise. Today, SoapBox Labs powers educational and entertainment experiences for kids globally. By the end of 2022, SoapBox had powered over 80 million learning experiences through our global partners including McGrawHill and Scholastic.