31 March 2015
Digital Pioneer on the Power of the Internet
Baroness Lane-Fox, founder of lastminute.com, digital entrepeneur, baroness and chancellor of the Open University, took to the stage last night at The Science Museum in London to deliver the 2015 Richard Dimbleby Lecture. With her primary business idea taking off mid way through the dotcom phenomenon at the age of 25, Martha has experienced the growth and expansion of technology first hand.
Lane-Fox was open to share her opinion that people should be using the internet more often than they are and that it is “for everyone”. “It’s basic literacy” she argued, “and it is something we’ve absolutely got to crack as country”.
She made the case that the world wide web is no longer just vital for employment, but also for the rights and benefits of being a citizen. Banking, business, online shopping, research, customer service, all of these things that are taken for granted as part of daily life rely on broadband and the ability to connect to the rest of the world. Lane-Fox encourages the idea that government have still not yet coined a way for the whole country to be digitally enabled. Though she publically addressed the House of Lords and David Cameron as part of her speech about the lack of speed and haste with the digital demand, she remained optimistic that there is change on the way and this could be a way to deliver more jobs in the digital and technology sectors. She goes on to talk about the representation of women within the digital sphere and that “surely there must me some more Ada Lovelace’s lurking in this land”. Comparing the digital sector to parliament, Lane-Fox observes that there are even less women in the digital sector than there are in parliament.
Aside from jobs, business development and growth were also discussed. She questioned how local businesses would survive without the power of the internet, the social media sites, the testimonials and the business to business partnerships. She asked how small to medium enterprises might survive if they only relied on placing orders by post, or word of mouth to build their reputation. She claims that businesses could be making more profit if they become forward-thinking in this digital age and embraced high-tech solutions such as cloud computing. How much do you buy online? Seeing products in detail accompanied by high-resolution images and a zoom facility is something that has taken years and years to build. Yet it has only taken a couple of years for this to be accepted as second nature and now improved to video viewing or rotational view. In comparing the launch of the internet to the launch of TV and radio, it is evident that we are moving towards a digital revolution and the speed of technology has entered the superfast mode.
The Richard Dimbleby Lecture given by Martha Lane-Fox on the future of the internet is available to view on BBC iPlayer until 28 April 2015. Click here to watch it now.
