Eva Pascoe (born 1964) is a Polish-born
internet entrepreneur and
consultant
A consultant (from la, consultare "to deliberate") is a professional (also known as ''expert'', ''specialist'', see variations of meaning below) who provides advice and other purposeful activities in an area of specialization.
Consulting servic ...
residing in London who co-founded Britain's first
internet cafe,
Cyberia. She has previously written for ''
The Independent'' newspaper and is a commentator on
technology matters in the media and through her own blog. She was a key figure in introducing
online shopping to
Topshop, and has recently contributed to the
Grimsey report on the future of UK
High Street shopping. She also co-founded and is
chair
A chair is a type of seat, typically designed for one person and consisting of one or more legs, a flat or slightly angled seat and a back-rest. They may be made of wood, metal, or synthetic materials, and may be padded or upholstered in vario ...
of the
thinktank
A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmental o ...
''Cybersalon''.
Biography
Pascoe was born in Poland in 1964. She moved to
London and studied
Cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning.
Cognitive psychology originated in the 1960s in a break from behaviorism, which ...
at
Birkbeck, University of London
, mottoeng = Advice comes over nightTranslation used by Birkbeck.
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £4.3 m (2014)
, budget = £10 ...
.
Work
''Cyberia''
She co-founded Britain's first
internet cafe in London called
Cyberia, in September 1994.
She created the first HTML courses for the public in Cyberia and ran the first women-only courses for women interested in getting into technology. Pascoe and her co-founders were focusing on closing the gender gap in technology use as in 1994 women were less than 3% of Internet users.
In the media
Pascoe was the technical journalist for ''
The Independent'' from 1995 to 2001, commentating on the increase power of the Web, growth of Network society and increasing risk of cybersecurity issues. She has also contributed to
Centre for London,
BBC ''
Newsnight'', whilst running her innovation website and blog since 2013 covering
online retail and
social media technology.
Mobile internet
Pascoe correctly predicted in 1999 that
mobile phones
A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...
would in the future be used for shopping and browsing on daily
commutes. This included a public exchange with
Alan Sugar, who disagreed with her declaring: "If I am in the office, I use my computer, while at home I use my PC. Since most of the time I am in one or other location, there is no need to receive information on a mobile phone".
Topshop
In 1999, she was invited by then CEO of
Arcadia Group to set up an
e-commerce team for the
Topshop fashion brand. Her team developed the first
e-commerce websites for fashion in UK and expanded online presence to all Arcadia brands. Pascoe became
managing director of the venture ''Zoom'' which included not only building online shopping for Arcadia brands but also delivered news from
Associated Newspapers.
Cybersalon
Pascoe co-founded the
thinktank
A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmental o ...
''Cybersalon'' in 1997 and is their
chair
A chair is a type of seat, typically designed for one person and consisting of one or more legs, a flat or slightly angled seat and a back-rest. They may be made of wood, metal, or synthetic materials, and may be padded or upholstered in vario ...
. Cybersalon is a
not for profit organisation focusing on
current affairs Current affairs may refer to:
News
* Current Affairs (magazine), ''Current Affairs'' (magazine) a bimonthly magazine of culture and politics.
* Current affairs (news format): a genre of broadcast journalism
* Current Affairs, former name for Behi ...
and the effect of
digital revolution upon society, business, and culture.
Future High Street
In 2013, Pascoe was invited to join
Bill Grimsey in the ''High Street Report'', a group of experts who correctly forecast the imminent changes to the High Street, predicting move to online to eliminate need for High Street stores in UK.
The report was presented to a
House of Commons Committee in September 2013.
References
External links
Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pascoe, Eva
Living people
1964 births
Polish emigrants to the United Kingdom
Internet pioneers
Women Internet pioneers