Digital champion and entrepreneur
Martha Lane Fox co-founded Lastminute.com over ten years ago, and sold it in 2005. She also co-founded Lucky Voice, a karaoke bar chain and online service. She is a business woman, charity trustee, and a board member of Channel 4 and Marks and Spencer. She is currently the UK government’s Digital Champion.
At school we were obliged to do biology, physics and chemistry up to the age of 16. We cursed it at the time, but now I see how enlightened that was. I was useless at all of them: I’ve always been more of a words person, my family too. Now I wish I’d been encouraged more, and I read popular science books when I can.
I did become a bit more adept at technology. I can’t write a piece of software but I’ve worked with enough software developers to ask the right questions and to understand how they go about their work. I love the re-engineering of traditional processes, the chaos new technologies can bring about, the introduction of new solutions.
In my experience IT is a male dominated world. There are women at the marketing and admin end of things, but the programming and engineering is nearly all male. I wish I could name an inspiring female programmer, but I can’t. Do send in some names in response to this blog!
In 2009 the government asked me to look at how can we help people who are not online at all to be connected. The role has morphed and grown and I am now Digital Champion for the coalition government. My task is threefold: to make sure that the 9 million who are off line get on to the internet; to make government more multi-channel, so more services are provided online; and to look at government websites and how well they operate.
I enjoy this – I get to go round the country meeting people whose lives have been transformed through going online for the first time. You can read some of the stories at Race Online 2012. It matters greatly: people who are not online are usually suffering multiple forms of deprivation and they are excluded from conversations that are shaping our lives.
I’ve been very lucky as an entrepreneur, and I have mixed feelings when people ask me about women and entrepreneurship. There are a lot of women running small businesses out of their kitchen. They don’t always get counted because they don’t grow beyond this – but we need to celebrate women who start any kind of business, whatever size. Then there are a lot of women in the public, voluntary and private sectors who are very entrepreneurial in how they work and what they do. But it is tough and I believe women often lack confidence. When I ran Lastminute.com if a man wanted a pay rise he would tell me straight up. But the women would send several emails and take months to gradually raise the issue. We need to be more direct!
I know am so fortunate. I was given bags of confidence – more than enough for one person! – and the best education money could buy and I had a flat, for instance, so there were things I didn’t have to worry about when I set up my first business.
It seems to me that we should be dissatisfied. We should demand more for women. We need more women at all levels of science, engineering and technology. But also, if you look at how far we have come in my lifetime, its amazing. For instance, once it was assumed that women would earn less than men for equivalent work – that is no longer the case. So I hope that in 200 years we will have made a lot of steps forward. We are just at the beginning!
Comments
Ruth Wilson (moderator):
Hi Martha - we are delighted to have you join us on the blog for two weeks.
I must explain that Martha is going to follow and respond to the blog on twitter. So do post things here and I will tweet them, or feel free to tweet Martha direct. If you are on Twitter, use the hashtag #ukrc so Martha knows its relating to this blog. I will be following all the questions and responses on Twitter, and pasting them in here so people can keep track.
You can follow Martha and the UKRC on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/marthalanefox/
@marthalanefox
http://twitter.com/ukrc
@ukrc
It's an experiment - we look forward to seeing how it goes!
Marion Scott:
Martha - quick question to start with - does the Race online 2012 site break down the extraordinary digital divide figures by gender?
Rachel Tobbell:
Hi Martha, you say that you 'were given' bags of confidence and I wonder who gave you this and how? As a mother I notice that my daughter tends to be more vulnerable to knocks in confidence than either of my sons. She questions her own abilities much more than they do. (Some would say that this is because she is more realistic and self-aware.) I am keen that she grows up with 'bags of confidence' like you did. Is there anything I could learn from your upbringing?
Ruth Wilson (moderator):
Message from Martha to Marion: 'Ofcom does.'
Ruth Wilson (moderator):
Message from Martha to Rachel: my extraordinary, bonkers parents both of whom are remarkable for v different reasons.. :)
Ruth Wilson:
Hi Martha,
You said you couldn't name an inspiring female programmer, so we put out a request on Twitter. Here are the responses so far:
@anitaborg_org said that female programmers et al blogged about as heroines for Ada Lovelace Day in March http://findingada.com/list/. Dame Wendy Hall is a pioneer and role model.
Also - and I can really endorse this - @bletchleypark is a source of contacts, information and ideas. Women played their part in the early development of computers at Bletchley Park during the war: http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk See this video: http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/content/video-example.rhtm
@mariawolters said “What about Grace Hopper?” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper
@afriquanwoman wrote "look at http://thenextwomen.com/, found on @AngelaDSaini blog"
@foxboom said “I'd put @mrsmullens on my list of inspiring programmers, but I think we're unheard of outside tax and accounting circles. :)”
@Jan Katalytik wrote “Send her to the bcswomen agm” london. You'll meet lots of inspiring women there.
And I'd like to name Kaye Elling, a games developer who is teaching at Bradford University.
@GIRL GEEKS said visit Michelle Dewbs (entrepreneur at http://www.chiconomise.com./ and winner of the apprentice). She wants to recruit progammers.
Theodora Intellect:
Intellect's Women in IT Forum and womenintechnology.co.uk have teamed up to undertake a survey about the thoughts and opinions of women working in the technology profession - the survey won't take long to complete and we would really welcome your contributions. We first ran this survey back in 2007 and we're really keen to find out if anything's changed or improved over the last three years.
The survey is running until Thursday 30th September 2010 so please do complete it before then!
For further information and to take the survey please go to http://www.womenintechnology.co.uk/Womens-Careers-in-the-Technology-Industry-Survey-2010 and please feel free to forward this link onto any female friends, family and colleagues who you think might be interested in answering our questions too.
Many thanks!
Ruth Wilson:
Thanks Theodora - we will tweet this on to our networks.
Ruth Wilson (moderator):
ESkills and Big Ambition are running a Girls in IT month - October 2010. Great idea! http://bit.ly/aPTzYW On Twitter, use the hashtag #girlsinit
They've picked up on Martha's request for names, and our list above: http://www.bigambition.co.uk/News/Your-Tech-Future/Can-you-name-an-inspiring-female-programmer/
Erica Williams:
Hi Martha,
I understand you will be on the Steve Wright show on Radio 2 this afternoon.
I hope to listen in.
Erica
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