The London Book Fair has announced that Baroness Martha Lane Fox, the UK Digital Champion, co-founder of lastminute.com and noted lover of literature, will appear in conversation with conference Chair Anna Rafferty at this year's Publishing for Digital Minds Conference. The conference, which takes place on April 7, in association with The Publishers Association and sponsored by Copyright Clearance Center, will welcome a global audience of delegates for a day of keynote speeches, networking panel discussions and debates on the digital future of publishing.
As the publishing industry continues to respond to the opportunities and challenges of ecommerce, Baroness Lane Fox's presence at the Publishing for Digital Minds Conference, will afford a great chance to hear from a pioneer of online business success on how to combine entrepreneurial flair within a wider arts and culture context. Delegates can look forward to a thought-provoking and informed session.
Martha Lane Fox's work for the British Government is now used as a template to put the digital economy at the heart of governments across the European Union. Meanwhile, Neelie Kroes, the European Commission's leader of its digital agenda programme, called Lane Fox a "great inspiration and role model – [we] now have digital champions across the EU".
Publishing for Digital Minds – Evolving Paradigms, Partners and Platforms will address the theme of how to educate and inform to enrich society, while creating a new digital wealth economy, with a programme that includes discussion on how publishers can ethically raise awareness of their products and services among child audiences and an Innovation Award presented in association with IC Tomorrow.
Baroness Lane Fox first emerged as a pioneer of online business with the launch of iconic ecommerce brand lastminute.com in 1998. Since then she has used her considerable public profile as one of the first-wave of British Internet entrepreneurs to advance numerous technological, cultural and humanitarian causes. Her role as a government advisor as UK Digital Champion has been credited with extending the benefits of Internet access to two million more British citizens by the end of 2012.
This work has continued with the foundation of her charity Go ON UK, which campaigns to make the UK the world's most digitally skilled nation. She also made a public statement of support for her love of books and literature in 2012 when it emerged that she was one of a number of private individuals to support the Women's Prize for Literature that year as it sought a replacement sponsor.
The conference will inaugurate the first LONDON BOOK AND SCREEN WEEK, designed to bring into focus the importance that written content has across an increasingly multi-channel route to the consumer.
