Lisa Goodchild is Founder and CEO of Digiwoo and the Digilearning Foundation that delivers digital skills training, collateral and equipment to underprivileged children and young people in the UK and the Caribbean.
Who is your digital hero?
This is such a difficult one to answer, as there are so many amazing people I’ve met over the years but someone who seems to support so many is Melina Jacovou, the founder and owner of Propel London.
What has she done to win hero status in your eyes?
She is a champion of ALL people. I have never met someone quite like her, all roads lead to Melina. When I look back at the early days founding my digital agency Digiwoo I knew no one and was entering a space into which I was launching which was social media. This was when the social scene was still in its infancy. Not many people believed it was anything big or thought it had substance.
I first met Mel at a social media event at a trade show. Funnily I met some extraordinary individuals on that one day including Andy Oakes and Marcus East who are still friends to this day. Melina knew social media was an industry that was growing at a massive pace and had amazing potential. She has this really amazing knack of spotting an up and coming industry and understanding it from the root up as well as supporting the growth.
Melina knew of a startup who needed help with their digital reputation and gave the co-founder a call. The person was Media Math’s Erich Wasserman, another amazing person I met that day. It was life-changing for my business to have phenomenal people like Mel and Erich sit up and listen to what I had to say about social media and believe in me. So that’s the long and short of it with Melina. She spots talent and believes in them!
How has her heroism helped drive digital?
I reckon if you speak to most people in the industry she has found them a job role or supported them in one way or another throughout their careers and businesses.
Propel London is legendary and understands the digital market in a way many recruitment companies do not, but more importantly understands people. She is as real and down to earth as they come and cheers everyone on, in particular women and is a massive proponent of inclusivity in general. She walks the talk and believes in and lifts people all around her.
What are the biggest challenges in digital we need another hero to solve?
Digital literacy for all. The country still has a massive issue with digital skills and we need to up our game in particular now we are leaving Europe. We have the most phenomenal pool of creativity from fashion to music, science and sport. When we do it big we do it well and I believe we have to ensure we have a space at the digital table and are being world digital leaders.
What is your most heroic personal achievement so far in digital?
Now the word heroic makes me a little uncomfortable. I have not done anything so far I would call heroic as such but we are on a mission to do something pretty heroic with Digilearning. We want to change the game of education to edutainment, building one of the leading brands in the world.
Education is a turn off for our young, it’s stuck in the Victoria times with little more innovation in the classrooms then a board that has evolved from black to white. Our teachers need the support and investment to help our young understand the opportunities and we aim to do just that. Digital has changed the world and has the ability to change lives. At Digilearning we understand the power based on lived experiences and know the difference it is going to make.
