Martyn Farrows

As a COO working in technology innovation, Martyn Farrows’ role is varied and diverse. He is the Chief Operating Officer at SoapBox Labs, a company operating at the nexus of some very big trends right now. The company builds voice technologies for children – in other words, Voice Tech for Kids. 

“If you think about it”, Martyn Farrows begins, “voice is the natural interface for technology, particularly for kids. Only in the past 5 years or so has voice tech gone mainstream, so it is still very much an emerging market.” In a market where most applications of speech recognition are targeted at adults (for example, smart assistants like Alexa or Siri), children also have their own unique requirements “and expectations!” Martin adds, for voice technology. 

Everything we do is, by its nature, driven by the need to constantly innovate.”

Through a lot of hard work and with a very talented team, SoapBox Labs is now established as the global leader in this space. Operating at the intersection of areas like Artificial Intelligence, remote learning, speech recognition, kid tech and data privacy, the company has invested deeply over the last 7 years in its people and its technology. “Everything we do is, by its nature, driven by the need to constantly innovate - taking this approach enables us to capitalise on our strengths and the global market opportunities opening up to us in literacy education, language learning, toys and robotics.” 

Martyn’s own career working in the world of innovation started soon after he completed his PhD in UL. He explains “I moved to Brussels in the mid-90s and started to work with the European Commission’s Innovation Directorate.” During his time there, Martyn says he developed a deep understanding of the role of innovation in supporting economic growth and societal impact, as well as the multi-faceted ecosystem that is required to support and nurture innovation. 

Throughout the 2000’s, he got more and more interested in the role of innovative technology to support education and learning and he went on to run a national centre for research and innovation in learning technologies at Trinity College Dublin. While there, he met the founder of SoapBox Labs - Patricia Scanlon - who already had a well-developed vision for how voice technology could be used to transform experiences for kids. 

“It’s incredibly rewarding to experience how that talent can come together and build truly innovative technology that has a real impact for good.” 

As COO at SoapBox Labs since 2017, Martyn’s role is broad - from developing the company’s strategic partnerships globally to ensuring that it respects the fundamental digital privacy rights of kids with everything that they do. 

“We have an amazingly talented team in the business” he concludes “and it’s incredibly rewarding to experience how that talent can come together and build truly innovative technology that has a real impact for good.”