Giving it all she’s got

DOT com internet entrepreneur Martha Lane Fox is dressed in smart, blue trousers and a geometric blue and black patterned jumper. I don’t need to ask where her outfit is from. The multi-millionaire always wears Marks and Spencer clothes.

As a board member of the high street chain, she is, she says, “always loyal to the brand”.

When this 37-year-old takes on a role, she gives it all she’s got. Today she is on a train, heading for the North Yorkshire coast, and keen to talk about one of her other abiding passions – getting the whole country online.

In the North-East, 29 per cent of people have never been online, compared only 13 per cent in London. This is something Lane Fox, our Government-appointed UK Digital Champion, wants to change.

She particularly wants to meet the people of Bridlington, which is one of the most digitally deprived parts of the country, with internet take-up as low as 41 per cent. And she’s bringing her whole team with her from London to find out why.

“I want to find out why people aren’t using it and listen to what’s happening up here,” she says. She wants to get the whole town switched on to the benefits of the internet though she is prepared for some resistance. “I hope we don’t make too many locals jump off the pier in desperation,”

she laughs.

She argues that the web can bring economic benefit to deprived areas like this. Those familiar with the internet earn more, perform better in job interviews and have an easy route to keeping skills fresh, she says. And families can save an average of £560 a year through internet deals and discounts.

But, most of all, Lane Fox wants to get across the joys of instant communication: “The internet can help make your life easier, cheaper and more fun. You can save money and see pictures of your grandchildren, the stuff that we all take completely for granted.”

It is a subject she feels passionate about because the internet has transformed her life in so many ways.

For a start, following the 2003 flotation of her internet travel company, lastminute.com, it made her very rich.

But, much more importantly, after a horrific car crash in Morocco in 2008, in which she suffered a stroke, shattered pelvis and 28 broken bones, it helped her get her life back.

It is thanks to the internet that she was able to engage with the world again and find ways of coping. “I survived. You either choose to lie down, let it wash over you and not do anything or you carry on and try to keep going. You have to decide, are you going to lie in bed all day or not? I chose not to let the physically challenging stuff overcome me,” she says.

“When I was really very ill and unable to leave home, I was able to communicate with all my friends by Skype and e-mail.

“It kept me connected with the world. It also helped me research all sorts of medical information.”

BECAUSE she can’t walk round shops or carry bags, she now does all her shopping online: “Technology has transformed my life,” she says.

The black cane by her side is now a constant companion but Lane Fox doesn’t wish to dwell on her disabilities. “I cope,” she says.

It is the thought of helping millions of others, particularly the elderly and disadvantaged, who have most to gain from the benefits of the internet, which drives her now. More than 60 per cent of those not online are over 65 year olds: “These are the people, who may be physically challenged or isolated, who can benefit most.”

She was upset to learn recently that three million people aged over 65 don’t see another person in a week: “That is something technology can help address,” she says. “It is about social justice for me, a moral and economic imperative.

Being able to use the internet is now as basic as being able to read. If you’re not helping people to read clearly you are massively disadvantaging them.”

When she took up her post in July last year, there were ten million people in the UK who had never used the internet. That figure has fallen to nien million.

But Lane Fox and her Race Online team aim to have the entire population internet savvy by the time the Olympics are being held, in 2012.

She refuses to take the £30,000 salary that goes with the job because money is not what drives her: “It strikes me as a bit lame when you’ve got a lot of money like me to take public money. I am not doing this for the salary, I was delighted to be asked to do this and I am doing it because I care about it deeply.”

It is the human success stories that have inspired her most: “I have met the most incredible people where the internet has literally saved their life. Social change can occur through computers. That is what drives me.”

She talks about the young homeless girl suffering from depression who went online to find out about what courses could help her: “She is now about to go to university.”

And then there’s the lad from Leeds who escaped a cycle of drug addiction after finding work through an online music project, where he now helps train others. “He is an amazing young man,” she says.

WITH a staff of only six working out of cramped offices in London’s Soho, Lane Fox is proving to be a pretty amazing young woman. With a miniscule budget, her whole strategy is based on coaxing partner organisations, both public and private, to work together for the common cause.

So far, she has persuaded 750 partners, from Google and McDonald’s to local public libraries and post offices, to get behind her mission.

“This is what you have to do when you have got no money. You have to piggyback on other people’s resources,” she says.

Between them, the partners, some of which will be assisting her in Bridlington as part of Get Online Week, have made commitments to bring a further 1.9 million people online: “People training and helping other people is the key to unlocking this,” she says.

She confesses that, as an entrepreneur, she has always set herself ambitious targets and now wants Britain to be the first country on Earth fully connected to the web: “We want to have at least as many people as watch TV,” she says.

She highlights successes in our region, such as Sunderland, dubbed the Facebook Capital of Britain, which is creating a network of “electronic village halls” offering access to new technology to the elderly and less well off.

“Thanks to local council initiatives, Sunderland is getting there. People are trying to make a difference,” she says.

She has been continuing to Twitter throughout the Get Online campaign week: “I love Twitter, it is a phenomenal tool. I use it for news and keeping in touch with people. I find something on the internet every day that inspires me,” she says.

Lane Fox, who also runs a karaoke bar company called Lucky Voice, and has been known to stand on stage and perform the odd number herself, is renowned for her sense of fun.

And she is certainly bringing her own breath of fresh air to famously breezy Bridlington.

While in the town, she is looking forward to taking her team for a paddle in the North Sea and can’t wait to sample the town’s famous fish and chips.

“I am really excited to be here, to have the chance to chat to people and explore all the joys of Bridlington, the Paris of the North,” she says.

■ To find out more about Get Online Week, October 18 to 24, go to getonlineweek.com