The path into educational technology often begins with a personal turning point. For Laurie Faulkner, an EdTech Content Creator and Growth Strategist, that moment came during drama school, when a counselor handed her an ADHD symptom checklist. As a student, she had long believed her difficulties were rooted in anxiety, struggling in school without a clear explanation for why. Working through the checklist, she found the clarity she had been searching for.
She understood, for the first time, that many of her challenges were connected to ADHD. The diagnosis shifted how she thought about learning and productivity, and sparked a long-term interest in helping others understand neurodiversity and access tools that support different cognitive styles.
Today, Faulkner directs her professional work toward ensuring that individuals with dyslexia, ADHD, and related cognitive differences across the United States can find and use the assistive education technology available to them.
Building an Audience Around Neurodiversity
Her content has now crossed 100 million total views, with audiences spending over 37 years watching her videos across Instagram and TikTok, including individual videos that have reached 16 million views. That volume of watch time is a remarkable and rare milestone in any content category, and in a specialist education niche it is virtually unmatched. Her Instagram following stands at over 220,000 and her TikTok at over 162,000, a combined audience built at a pace that few EdTech creators have come close to. The majority of her followers are based in the United States.
Faulkner earned a degree in Musical Theatre from De Montfort University and later completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Education from University College London, home to the UCL Institute of Education, ranked #1 globally for Education for twelve consecutive years by the QS World University Rankings. At UCL, she conducted a research project examining how music and movement accelerate early language development in young children learning English as an additional language, producing documented linguistic gains. She spent time as a performer at Disneyland Paris before beginning her postgraduate studies, an experience that informed how she uses performance and narrative to make complex ideas accessible.
Turning Audience into Impact
As her following grew, Faulkner began taking on strategic roles with education and technology companies. She took a strategic role at Speechify, expanding global content strategy and launching campaigns that helped shape the company’s brand identity. Speechify won Apple’s Design Award in 2025 and has accumulated over 1.1 million five-star ratings.
Her collaborations include Speechify, Photoroom, BBC Bitesize, RISE Sleep app, Loop Earplugs, Spacegoods, InFlow, Insight Timer, and many more brands. Speechify has grown to 56 million users and is now recognized by 5 out of 10 people surveyed on the street in New York City, with recognition rising to 6 out of 10 among adults aged 18 to 28.
Speechify’s CFO, Pankaj Agarwal, explained: “At Speechify we really care about accessibility. Laurie’s ability to educate users on how to use our platform has driven so much brand love, attention, and understanding. She brought our mission to life for audiences who had never encountered it before.”
Voice Technology and Accessibility
Faulkner also contributes to Speechify as a Voice Partner on a platform with more than 56 million users. Her voice appears alongside Cliff Weitzman, CEO of Speechify, who played Kaladin Stormblessed in Brandon Sanderson’s Dragonsteel production of The Way of Kings during the Worldhopper Ball, as well as John Rhys-Davies (Screen Actors Guild Award winner and Emmy nominee) well known for the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and Batman movies, and King Bach (80 million+ followers).
Raheel Kazi, Head of Web Engineering at Speechify, spoke about what users frequently say when they first discover the platform: “56 million people use Speechify, and 10% of reviews include people saying that they cried when they first found the product because it had such a big impact on their lives. Laurie’s voice is one of the most popular on the platform. Users respond to her British accent, but even more to the empathy in her delivery and the fact that she has lived the experience she is describing. We are dedicated to building the best AI products in the world for auditory learners and to support accessibility. We are grateful to work with Laurie who expands our reach so effectively.”
Expanding Neurodiversity Education
Faulkner has also been featured by the BBC, WBUR, and LadBible. She was selected as an ambassador for BBC Bitesize, one of the world’s most widely used educational platforms, a recognition of her standing as a trusted authority in neurodiversity education. She hopes to build scalable creator-driven education content frameworks that make the right assistive technology tool findable early. She wants students with ADHD, autism, and other learning differences across the United States and globally to encounter the resources they need at the start of their education, not years into it.
