Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is obviously excited about the huge and educated market for his global social media platform.

In his first two-day visit to India, the 30-year-old Facebook CEO talks not only of helping India to connect remote villages to the Internet, but also targets the promotion of the internet.org app, which permits underdeveloped people to access basic online services.

Facebook is creating a $1 million fund to help developers create apps for farmers, migrants and women. It will be a contest to drive new apps and services in local languages.

Zuckerberg said that he has found just 243 million Indians online, while a billion are disconnected. Calling it a “huge waste of potential,” he felt that he was depriving the whole world of their ideas and creative vision.

It is clear he wanted to transfer whatever could give the privilege not just to the well-known people of the world, but to those who needed them, he said at a conference in New Delhi on Thursday.

The Digital India initiative has excited him. He wants Facebook to be part of the government’s commitment to linking villages online and also promote Facebook to campaign for education and empowerment of the girl child, oppose female foeticide and promote the Ganga clean-up plan.

Facebook is also focusing on local languages to promote content.

Since 2007, Facebook has been working on new apps and services in native languages. Almost 65 per cent use it in languages other than English, including 10 Indian tongues.

Mark Zuckerberg after Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella is the third biggest name to visit India recently.

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay (Free for commercial use)

Image Reference: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/facebook-social-media-network-3368457/