 M  artha Lane Fox remembers the first time she heard about the internet. She was in her final year of university and a friend called Toby, whose gap year in Japan had left him technically savvy, had a new gadget. "He showed me this weird little device and said he was sending an email over the internet and I had no idea what that meant," laughs Fox.  Even when Fox was building what was later to become the dotcom boom's flagship success, lastminute.com, her biggest struggle was convincing hotel chains and tour operators that the internet could be the future of business. "The majority of them just didn't believe it was going to survive."  Having proved them wrong and made  millions in the process, Fox is turning her attention to the internet as a societal tool. Two years ago, she was asked to become the UK's "digital inclusion champion" ("which has an unfortunate acronym," she grins) and find ways of helping the most disadvantaged in society through technology. Naturally, she set her sights even higher. "Rather than  looking at individual projects and trying to replicate them I thought, screw that, we have a real opportunity, right now, to help get as many people online as possible. Because  a networked nation, with everybody knowing how they can get on to the internet, could really change the dynamics of the country."  Fox's aim is to reach the 9.2m people in the UK who have never used the internet, almost half of whom are among the country's lowest-income households.  " 