Belinda Parmar, (born 12 March 1974), is a British

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...

, campaigner and corporate activist. Parmar is the founder and CEO of "The Empathy Business", formerly known as "Lady Geek", a consultancy business that "embeds empathy into companies" and has published an annual "Global Empathy Index" in the Harvard Business Review which claims a

causal Causality (also referred to as causation, or cause and effect) is influence by which one event, process, state, or object (''a'' ''cause'') contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object (an ''effect'') where the ca ...

relationship between empathy and commercial performance. In 2018, Parmar stated “it may take a pandemic to end our relationship with junk tech. She claimed that technology is having a negative impact on mental health and compared social media to fast food calling it “junk tech” that requires “no cognitive effort”, despite having previously been described as "the high priestess of tech empowerment". Parmar led the Little Miss Geek campaign, supported by forty MPs, which aimed to inspire women to follow careers oriented towards technology.

Campaigning

Her campaign against “junk tech” provides support for parents, including workshops. As part of this campaign, Parmar has stated that "we no longer control technology: it controls us", "we have become slaves to technology" and talks about the dangers of "junk technology", comparing the effects of too much technology to the ill-effects of junk food. She aims to "hold to account the tech giants who are profiting from our over-engagement". Parmar's previous campaigning mission, through Lady Geek, was "to end the stereotyping and patronising of women within the technology" and the “pink it & shrink it” approach of selling to women.

Honours and awards

Parmar was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the

2014 Birthday Honours The 2014 Birthday Honours were appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. The Birthday Honours are awarded as part of ...

for services to women in technology. In 2014 Parmar was included in the World Economic Forum's List of Young Global Leaders and was named one of ''Business Insider Australias "100 Most Influential Tech Women on Twitter". In October 2014 she was placed in Fortune's "55 most influential women on Twitter". In June 2015 Parmar was named by ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' "one of the UK's leading campaigners to get more women into tech". In 2017 she was included in The Cranfield Female FTSE Board Report '100 Women to Watch 2017'. Parmar is listed in the Computer Weekly Most Influential Women in Tech 2018. In 2020, Parmar was voted one of Top 20 Global Diversity figures in public life for "bridging the gap in representation of women in tech and STEM".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Parmar, Belinda 1974 births Living people British chief executives Businesspeople in information technology HuffPost writers and columnists British women business executives Officers of the Order of the British Empire Women technology writers 21st-century British women writers British women columnists