“It’s not OK not to understand the internet anymore,” said Martha Lane Fox
during her recent Richard Dimbleby Lecture broadcast live on the BBC. During the
speech, the tech champion attacked the UK’s digital divide, the lack of
understanding of the internet among UK politicians and the under-representation
of women in technology companies. In her opinion, what is needed is a new
institution – she suggests the name doteveryone.org – which could tackle these
problems head on.
“Let’s create a new institution and make Britain brilliant at the internet.
We need a new national institution to lead an ambitious charge – to make us the
most digital nation on the planet,” she said.
Across the country, entrepreneurs took note of Lane Fox’s words. She was one
of the leading lights of the first wave of dotcoms, creating Lastminute.com,
along with Brent Hoberman. She remains an inspirational figure for many business
people, particularly women working in the tech space. Among these is Jess
Butcher, co-founder of “augmented reality” app maker Blippar, who says:
“Martha’s comments around the lack of women in technology particularly resonate
as, like her, I feel that technology suffers from a monumental diversity problem
which negatively effects both the culture and the output of the sector.”
Lane Fox says she wants to put women “at the heart of the technology
sector”. She says sexism is rife in the technology and investment industries –
she experienced it firsthand when she was fundraising for Lastminute.com. One
investor, apparently more interested in her personal life than the revolution
she was spearheading, bluntly asked: “What happens if you get pregnant?”
For Jess Stephens, chief marketing officer at cloud messaging service
SmartFocus, such attitudes are all too common. “I would go out on a limb and say
that every woman who works in the tech industry has an anecdote similar to the
story that Martha Lane Fox used at the start of her lecture. Inappropriate
remarks based on your gender are par for the course and represent obstacles that
you must overcome as woman in the tech world,” she says.
But if the gender imbalance in the tech industry is to be addressed by the
creation of a new institution, what methods should it employ? Entrepreneur and
investor Mark Pearson, who founded and sold MyVoucherCodes.co.uk, says he
welcomed much of Lane Fox’s speech, but he is concerned that doteveryone.org
would employ positive discrimination, which he feels is counterproductive. “No
single group should be at the ‘heart’ of it,” he said. “I have twins – a boy and
a girl – and I want each to grow up as ambitious and unafraid to succeed as the
other. The UK won’t be brilliant at the internet until we stop trying to
implement quotas and genuinely celebrate and insist upon the best from the next
generations.”
The importance of addressing skills shortages was stressed throughout
Lane Fox’s speech and there is little doubt that the UK has a problem. A recent
report suggested the UK needs an extra 150,000 workers with digital skills every
year and demand only looks set to increase.
Business owners struggling to find staff could hardly agree more with Lane
Fox on this point. Jack Bedell-Pearce, managing director of data centre company
4D-DC, says he regular faces the challenge of hiring good staff: “As an
employer, we’re still not seeing the relevant skills filtering through from
schools and universities. We need kids with a basic knowledge of coding,
networking and server infrastructure development.
“It sounds daunting but the earlier you get them thinking about IT not as a
social media experience, but in terms of code, networks and connected servers,
the sooner they will understand the potential of the internet.”
But the creation of a body, which is presumably publicly funded, raises
many questions. Lane Fox avoided laying out a clear blueprint for
doteveryone.org, although she did suggest an organisation that was
entrepreneurial at heart and far removed from the culture of a government
quango.
Laurie Wang, founder of women’s tech entrepreneur group W Kollective,
believes this is the right way to do it. “To maximise the institution’s
potential, I believe it should be innovative, adaptable and have an open
architecture. Very similar to how a startup would be run, in fact, fostering the
flow of creative ideas with the flexibility to adapt to the constantly evolving
digital landscape,” she says.
Lane Fox expressed considerable concern about the ability of politicians,
whose “lack of knowledge breeds fear”, and who are regularly haunted by the
words “Government. IT. Failure”. The failure of government to get things right
with IT projects leads many in the business world to wonder if a public body is
the right approach.
Joe Mathewson, founder of education tech firm Firefly, says the UK
internet industry doesn’t need more quangos or government institutions. “For
Britain to be better on digital and for British companies to challenge the
American heavyweights, we need a fundamentally non-governmental solution,” he
says. “We need to create a commercial environment which encourages
entrepreneurs, from school age and above, that supports digital businesses and
helps them grow.”
The UK has a strong startup scene, but in global terms it lacks big
hitters. Lane Fox said among the top 100 visited websites in the world, there’s
only one from the UK – the BBC – which comes in at number 74. So what, then, are
the chances the UK can, in Lane Fox’s words, “leapfrog every nation in the world
and become the most digital, most connected, most skilled, most informed on the
planet”? There are many big challenges to overcome, but most entrepreneurs
believe a combination of education, greater inclusion and entrepreneurial spirit
are the way forward.
However, some argue that it’s not just a matter of inspiring
schoolchildren and hoping things will trickle through. Richard Rolfe, co-founder
of National Coding Week, worked as a teacher until his early 50s but
subsequently taught himself to code and now works with adults to help them do
the same.
Rolfe says: “It is a myth that the internet, digital skills and the world of
tech belong to the youngsters. There are plenty of entrepreneurs and digital
professionals who have adapted to the digital revolution, but there are many who
think that digital skills are hard to learn.
“If her plan is to succeed, it needs to genuinely reach out to and embrace
people of all ages, all members of society.”
Sign up to become a member of the Guardian Small Business Network here for
more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.