“Communicating about things I feel passionate about feels good, even joyful.” says Niamh Bushnell, CCO of SoapBox Labs, based in Dublin.

Bushnell shares her passion for Ireland’s technology prowess, the importance of equitable AI and the challenges for women in technology. 

Tech Was The Ticket, Ireland Was the Passion

Coming out of university in the mid-90’s, Bushnell was keen to travel, use her foreign languages (Spanish, French and Italian), and work with smart, exciting people.

“So it wasn’t a love of technology itself that attracted me to the tech industry.” she admits. “I’ve always had those two sides, working with savvy tech entrepreneurs and representing tech companies, but not being a ‘tech person’ myself. What I did love, and was drawn to, was their smarts, and the universality and the dynamism of the industry.”

During 16 years based in the NYC area, she worked on supporting Irish, European and other international start-ups in entering the U.S. market. While adventure may have drawn her to tech, what compelled her to remain has been the opportunity to secure Ireland’s place in the “pantheon of technology champions.”

“For someone who loves to travel and has a global mindset, I’m also very committed to supporting local – be where you are, get involved in where you, shop where you are,” says Bushnell. “I was 16 years in NYC when I saw an ad for a leadership role in Dublin – to be the face of the indigenous tech industry there, to tell the story of Dublin as a city of technology and innovation. It read like a job tailor made for me, with a mission I could be really excited about.” 

In 2014, as Dublin Commissioner for Startups, she returned home with family, where she launched popular initiatives like the First Friday Brekkie, the publication Dublin Globe (to tell the stories of Irish tech companies), the data tracking platform TechIreland, and female founder focused activities like the €100M campaign, and the video series Female Founder Fridays.

“People think that multinational companies are the only Irish tech stories,” states Bushnell. “But there are over 2000 Irish startups and scale-ups expanding globally with technology homegrown in Ireland. I was just really fired up to tell that story.”

The Power of Tech Networking

As Commissioner, Bushnell’s strategy was to focus on promoting “the best of the best” Irish companies to achieve international traction.

“My philosophy was always that to win, our approach can’t be to love all of our companies equally. If we want Dublin’s reputation to grow, we have to focus our limited resources on promoting the very best companies, the most talented and gifted teams, the businesses with the greatest global potential,” she remembers, “Promote them first and foremost, and all Irish companies will benefit from that.”

It was at one of the monthly First Friday Brekkies Bushnell hosted in the Commissioner’s office that she met Patricia Scanlon, CEO and Founder of SoapBox Labs, a deep tech AI company specializing in speech recognition for children. They happened to both have a ring made by the same Soho designer from their stints living in New York. 

“You can tell when you meet founders how deep their ambition is, how great their vision is, and how solid their ground rules are,” states Bushnell. Scanlon’s 20+ years of specialization in speech recognition, her vision, and her approach to fundraising impressed Niamh hugely.

“Speech recognition for kids hadn’t really been touched,” explained Bushnell. “So SoapBox was going to be the specialist who would become a world leader in that space. The ambition to deliver on that was already tangible.” 

Real integrity in AI 

In her current role at SoapBox Labs, Bushnell testifies to the value of foresight and patience in developing the best technology to positively impact all user’s lives.

“Is your AI developed in a way that is equitable – that doesn’t have inherent gender bias or racial bias?” asks Bushnell. “If voice tech doesn’t recognize a kid’s dialect and gives them a lower score on a reading assessment because they don’t pronounce words in the way the AI has been built to understand them, they’re going to lose out at school.” 

“The way technology is built these days hugely impacts people’s quality of life – including their physical and mental health – and it can impact them socioeconomically too.” says Bushnell. “Equity is a big piece. Our voice technology has been proven to show no bias when it comes to accents and dialects. That’s massive. We built it with the ambition to deliver a level playing field for all kids, so we’re super excited that independent validators and customers are confirming that.”

As technology becomes more deeply integrated into our lives and education, especially at a young age, it’s more important than ever that it offers a positive and accurate experience for all users. With voice technology, this means developing solutions from the ground-up that actually work for all kinds of children.

“So that’s the compelling vision I’m now happy to be communicating,” smiles Bushnell.  

Challenge for Women in Tech

Having held several roles promoting the tech industry, Bushnell has talked to many women about their experiences. 

“What is one-hundred percent true, but kind of unbelievable still, is that women founders who are technical by background are often not taken seriously for their big vision and big ambition,” says Bushnell, especially if they’re proposing game changing, first-of-its-kind innovation. 

“Women founders who are scientists, who are engineers, who are PhDs, who have spent their whole careers building innovation and have the patents to prove it, these women say that when they go into a room and position a big vision of something that is going to change the world, they are often not believed by the men or the women (if there are any) sitting on the other side of the table.”

These women need extra grit and resilience as they move step by step through the process of knocking down the hurdles placed before them. Bushnell agrees that women have a huge responsibility to support other women in breaking down the barriers we collectively face. She also says it’s about time that women get over the need to be liked by everyone. 

“I think you’ve gotta really be comfortable with being a leader and being respected” she says, “but it’s also okay to be unpopular for decisions you make. It’s also okay to be wrong about decisions you make and put up your hand and say so. I think women care a lot more about their reputations at every stage of their journey than maybe they should.”

Despite the observation that society has a harder time accepting and encouraging women through failures, she encourages women to learn to embrace racking up some failures along the way. 

“We just have such a hard time faking it until we make it,” says Bushnell. “and business is nothing but that. You never really have any of the answers! You do good research, pay attention to the trends, listen to your instincts, but in the end, you have to take risks.”

One of her greatest experiences was in the TechIreland role when her team had little resource but a big vision. She loved taking risks, dusting herself off, and developing the tenacity to get up again and learn by doing. 

“You can have loads of failure but if you have tenacity, the chances are you’re going to figure it out as you try and fail, as you go along.” she muses.

“There’s a lot of freedom when you’re comfortable with risk, and with freedom comes creativity. Don’t worry if every single step isn’t going to come out as you want it to. Often times you don’t even know what the ideal outcome is, until you start.”