The government is poised to appoint internet
pioneerMartha
Lane Foxas a digital champion.
The high-profile appointment is part of the
government's efforts to get the 17 million people in the UK who
do not have access to the internet or other digital technologies
online. They include the elderly and the unemployed.
The founder of
Lastminute.com was unveiled to a small audience including
senior civil servants, representatives from the UK Digital Task
Force and charities Age Concern and Help The Aged, at a meeting in
central London on Monday.
Lane Fox, one the trailblazers of the internet age, co-founded
Lastminute.com in 1997, and sold the last of the shares in 2004 for
£4.6m.
Lane Fox, who has a degree in ancient and modern history from
Oxford University, is chairman of Lucky Voice, a chain of karaoke
bars, and antigone.co.uk, which offers small grants to support
organisations in the criminal justice sector. She also holds
non-executive directorships at Marks & Spencers and Channel
4.
Members of the government were notable by their absence at the
event this week. Paul Murphy, who had been minister for Wales, a
remit that also included
Digital Inclusion, was expected, but left the cabinet as part
of the government's reshuffle.
Helen Milner managing director of UK online centres said, "Two
years ago, the fact that a third of the population could not, would
not or did not use computers and the internet was not seen as a
problem that demanded attention. Now digital exclusion is
officially recognised by the government not just as a factor in
social exclusion but a root cause."
A spokeswoman for Digital Inclusion said it had not made any
"official appointments yet" and was in the process of determining
if Peter Hain, who returns as minister for Wales, will also hold
the dual role.
"A decision has not yet been made on [where] the Digital
Inclusion brief [will sit], and until that happens, nothing is
official," she said.
Photo by
Francesco Guidicini/Rex Features