The Future of Voice – SpinVox Recognized as Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum

CEO Christina Domecq invited to attend Davos Summit of world leaders

SpinVox, a global leader in voice-to-content messaging, today announced that it has been recognized as one of the world’s most innovative technology companies by the World Economic Forum, capping a remarkable year in which 13 telecommunications carriers around the world launched the SpinVox service.

SpinVox, which was founded in 2003 by Christina Domecq and Daniel Doulton, has been acknowledged by the World Economic Forum for its world-first voice to text conversion services which are revolutionizing the way people communicate.

Christina Domecq, CEO, SpinVox said: “In just five years, we have grown from an idea born of a moment of frustration – when coming out of a meeting, I received 14 voicemails and wondered why I couldn’t have those messages converted and delivered as text – to becoming a recognized global player in the telecoms sector, successfully integrating SpinVox into people’s everyday lives.”

The service is already available on five continents in six languages and has more than 10 million users worldwide. Its founding service converts voicemail messages automatically into text and delivers them as an SMS to a mobile phone and/or as an email to a PC inbox, PDA or Smartphone.

The success of this initial service has led to a string of innovative product launches: including SpinVox Blog which enables people to speak a blogpost from any phone, anywhere and have it posted automatically to their blogsite; Ping through SpinVox which enables people to update multiple social network sites – like Facebook and Twitter – just by using their voice.

SpinVox is also entering the Enterprise space successfully with services such as SpinVox CallMail – which improves call center workflow and deals with companies like Avaya for telecommunications infrastructure. SpinVox was also invited recently to join Microsoft’s Windows Mobile Developer Advisory Council.

At the heart of all the services is the SpinVox Voice Message Conversion System (VMCS™) which works by combining state-of-the-art speech technologies with human intelligence and learning. VMCS is continually evolving and currently converts messages in English, French, Spanish, German, Italian and Portuguese.

In March 2008 SpinVox expanded its existing Automated Speech Recognition (ASR) team and re-located it from its world headquarters in Marlow, Bucks to its new Advanced Speech Group center in Cambridge. The ASR team is headed by Dr Tony Robinson, an internationally-renowned academic who has successfully made the transition to entrepreneurship. SpinVox continues to collaborate with the Cambridge University team led by Prof. Phil Woodland.

2009 is the 10th anniversary of the Technology Pioneers program of the Forum, which aims to recognize companies at the forefront of technology and innovation. The program identifies companies which contribute to the Forum’s mission of improving the state of the world. To be selected as a Technology Pioneer, a company must be involved in the development of life-changing technology innovation which has the potential for long-term impact on business and society. In addition, it must demonstrate visionary leadership and show all the signs of being a long-standing market leader – and its technology must be proven.

Domecq continued: “Being recognized by the World Economic Forum is a fantastic achievement and a testament to the innovation, hard work and ‘can do’ culture that we have instilled across the company. I’m confident that we will continue to develop new products and services that will further change the way we communicate.”

André Schneider, Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer of the World Economic Forum, said: “We congratulate the 34 newly selected Technology Pioneers for their remarkable achievements and welcome them to the wider community of the World Economic Forum. During these difficult times, we are certain that the technologies driven by these visionary companies will contribute to the next wave of growth, with the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit that characterizes them.”

Domecq has already won a raft of awards for her entrepreneurship, including ‘The Young Entrepreneur of the Year’ and the ‘Science and Technology Entrepreneur of the Year’ from Ernst & Young. She was named in 2008 as one of: The Wall Street Journal’s `10 Women to Watch` in EMEA ; the ‘Top 35 Business Women under 35’ by Management Today; the Evening Standard’s ‘1000 Most Influential`; Silicon.com’s Top 50 Agenda Setters; Fierce Wireless’ Top Ten Women in Wireless and named as a member of the Courvoisier/Observer Future 500.

The complete list of Technology Pioneers, with their profiles and interviews with the executives of the selected companies, can be found at: http://www.weforum.org/techpioneers.

About SpinVox

SpinVox® is the world’s largest privately-held speech technology company, providing the most successful voice to text messaging services which are used daily by millions of people. SpinVox services are available directly on www.spinvox.com and through leading carriers and service providers globally.

Through significant innovations in voice and network technologies, SpinVox has brought together the two most natural forms of communication – voice and text – to create the fastest-growing form of messaging: Voice-to-Content™.

Its award-winning service is not only upgrading voicemail – by converting voicemail to text for delivery as SMS or email messages – but is also empowering people to speak SMS messages or emails to anyone, from any phone. SpinVox also enables people to speak messages directly to their favorite web messaging services such as Facebook, Twitter and many other popular web networks.

As a carrier-class hosted service provider, any network, anywhere in the world can rapidly implement SpinVox and it is now live with Alltel, Cincinnati Bell, Sasktel, Rogers, Telus, Telstra, Vodacom South Africa, Vodafone Spain, Movistar Chile and Livejournal and has announced a deal with Skype.

At the heart of SpinVox is its ground-breaking Voice Message Conversion System™ (VMCS™), which works by combining state-of-the-art speech technologies with a live-learning language process. VMCS™ now serves users across five continents in English, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese and Italian.

Contacts

For Media Enquiries:
SpinVox
Jane Henry
Global PR Director
+ 44 7941 941 794
Jane.henry {at} spinvox(.)com
or
GK Communications for SpinVox
Greg Kalish, 516-665-3292
spinvoxgkc {at} gkcomms(.)com