laying great emphasis towards spreading Internet penetration to Indian villages and creation of greater regional content, Facebook co-found Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday said that he is looking at a deeper engagement with the Government for achieving this.
Zuckerberg, who arrived in India on his maiden two-day visit to the country, said that Internet connectivity should be considered as one of the basic rights of the people.Counted among the youngest tech billionaires globally, Zuckerberg said he is excited to help the government in its ambitious Digital India programme.
“India is an amazing country with unlimited potential. It is a place of big ambitions and Facebook is deeply committed to the country. We see lot of growth for us here. I am meeting the Prime Minister. He is committed to connecting villages online and we are excited to see how Facebook can help,” he said at the Internet.Org Summit.
India has about 243 million Internet users and have 100 million plus Facebook users, but there are over a billion people in the country who do not have access to the net, he added.
Zuckerberg is the third high profile CEO of a US-based firm, after Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, to visit India in last few days.He announced that Facebook is creating a $1 million fund to help developers develop apps for farmers, migrants and women.This will be a contest to drive new apps and services in local languages. “Since 2007, Facebook has been working on new apps and services in local languages. About 65 per cent use Facebook in a language other than English, including 10 Indian languages,” he added.
He said that lack of relevant local language content is the biggest barrier to 4.4 billion people globally who don’t have Internet access.Terming connectivity as a human right, he said Facebook is committed to building an Internet that works for everyone and is not a “privilege of the rich and powerful”.
Zuckerberg said technology enables progress and has to serve the whole of society.“Connectivity can’t be a privilege for some of the rich and powerful...About 243 million people in India are on the net but a huge area is unconnected. India has embraced the Internet, but has a long way to go,” he added.
He lauded the country’s successful Mars probe adding that India has always been good at showing the ability to make technology “leaps”.“When the benefits of technology are shared across the whole society, that is when we can make the big leap. Because India has embraced science, the next generation has the opportunity to bring the world to India and India to the world. The whole world being robbed of creativity and ideas because so many people in India are not online,” he said.
The young billionaire, who is on his maiden trip as Facebook chief, is also scheduled to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday.“One of the things I am really excited about is that the PM has this whole Digital India initiative. We can’t create connectivity around the world just by ourselves, we are trying to work with operators, governments. I am mostly interested in hearing and learning about how we can help. I believe there are certain things that Facebook can uniquely bring,” he said.
Zuckerberg said through Internet.Org, the industry aims to make Internet access affordable for people across the globe.Focused on enabling the next five billion people without Internet access to come online, the founding members of the project include Facebook, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung.
The partners are collaborating on developing lower-cost, higher-quality smartphones and deploying Internet access in under-served communities.Facebook has also started working with Airtel to launch free basic Internet services in Zambia, using which thousands of people are using Wikipedia, Google and news.
Zuckerberg said access to free basic Internet should be like “dialling 911 in the US or 100 in India”.He announced that Facebook is creating a $1 million fund to help developers develop apps for farmers, migrants and women. This will be a contest to drive new apps and services in local languages.
“Since 2007, Facebook has been working on new apps and services in local languages. About 65 per cent use Facebook in a language other than English, including 10 Indian languages,” he added.
Meanshile, sources in the Government on Thursday said that Facebook is keen for promotion of e-commerce and e-health in India, besides taking up issues relating to expanding in the education sector during its chief’s interaction with the government.On its part, the Government is reportedly keen that Facebook should take up social issues of empowering the girl child through education and involve in aggressively campaigning against female foeticide.
It also wants its help in the ambitious Ganga cleaning up project, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is taking up in a major way.Zuckerbuck, on his part, is looking at deeper engagement with the government in expanding Internet penetration to villages and promoting creation of regional content.Zuckerberg is the third high profile CEO of a US-based firm, after Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, to visit India in last few days.
He announced that Facebook is creating a $1 million fund to help developers develop apps for farmers, migrants and women. This will be a contest to drive new apps and services in local languages.“Since 2007, Facebook has been working on new apps and services in local languages. About 65 per cent use Facebook in a language other than English, including 10 Indian languages,” he said.