Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s keen interest in the Indian market is no secret. Just like, we know its immense love for a Snapchat-like app. Facebook’s Zuckerberg can be quite competitive that way, and we’ve already seen how. And, it did succeed to a great extent. The company and its founder, among all other accusations, can also be called tenacious. That’s why the company won’t give up on India even after Internet.org being booted out, at least not yet.
The company is on a mission after all, to connect a billion Indians who don’t have access to Internet, bring them online, and eventually on Facebook. Internet.org, later packaged as Free basics, had left a bitter after-taste with Indian netizens, be it how Facebook tried to fool users into signing petitions in support of Free Basics, or hordes of advertising. And let’s not forget Marc Andreessen’s colonialism remark. These are among the various acts by Facebook that makes us skeptical about the company and its ‘noble’ initiatives. Zuckerberg’s India visit, townhall for students in Delhi, and statements like how he missed being in India for Diwali, all seemed to be a part of the bigger plan of achieving this.
The company was quite vocal that it hasn’t given up after the net neutrality conundrum, and it hadn’t. Months later we saw its attempt called OpenCellular. The initiative aimed at improving facilities at grassroots levels. The pressing need for emerging economies is access to a dependable infrastructure rather than free Internet. Yes, if you remember, most of the reactions or rather feedback during the net neutrality saga, was how Facebook can help improve infrastructure, if it really cares. The company promises a complete open source platform along with hardware design so that telcos, entrepreneurs, OEMs and researchers can build locally, deploy and operate wireless infrastructure using the platform. Facebook is also looking to partner with members of the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) for support of the open source community that is related to cellular access technology and also deciding trial zones.
The reason for all of this is simple: the social network is saturating its markets in the US and other developed nations. So, it has started long for ways to bring more people online from developing markets, of course like India and Africa, which are still struggling with Internet connectivity issues.
The latest comes in the form of bringing Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to India. And, it has started by investing in a popular edu-tech Indian startup Byju’s. It has co-invested in the startup along with the likes of Sequoia Capital, Sofina and Lightspeed Ventures. Let’s not forget, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan’s philanthropy venture had made its first major investment, leading a funding round in a startup that trains and recruits software developers in Africa. We won’t be surprised if the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative shows keen interest in India.
Connecting the world is definitely a noble cause, and had the net neutrality saga not unfolded the way it did in India, we would all be appreciating Facebook without a second thought for its latest initiatives.
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