‘Can't connect the world without connecting India,’ says Mark Zuckerberg

New Delhi: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg interacted with students and faculty at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi in a townhall on Wednesday. Around 900 students attended the Q&A session.

He says that “it is always great to be here”. Narrating why India is an important user base for Facebook, Zuckerberg remarked, “We talk about our mission in Facebook to connect people. More than 3 million have marked themselves safe via Facebook.” “India also has so many users on Facebook and WhatsApp which is also part of our community. So they are part of the people we want to connect.”

He further points out that “India still has so many people without Internet access. And Internet can provide, education, health information, access to job listings. So the research has shown for every 10 people who get access to the Internet 1 new job is created and 1 person is lifted out of poverty. So India has tremendous potential for that.” He adds, “connecting people in India is one of the most important things we can do for the world.” He also ideates that “people, students, entrepreneurs have here today that the world doesn't have access to”.

On being asked why he is "really taking so much interest in India", he said that considering that Indians are the second largest userbase of Facebook it is important to know what people here think about Facebook. Also, a lot of people donot have access to internet in the country, so it is great opporutnity to develop economy here.

Question: Although we are 130 million users, how do you connect people who are not on Facebook or don't have internet access?

Mark: The first thing I say is that we can look at the efforts we have had with Internet.org. It is live in 24 countries in the world and growing. There are 15 million people in the world who have access to Internet because of efforts of Internet.org.

I have seen some cynical reporting saying it isn't working as good. But if that isn't good I'd like to know what you think is. So this is a program that is working around the world. So we are doing things to break all these barriers. We are investing in new ways to bring connectivity.

For affordability, we are very focused that our apps use less data. Today Facebook uses 1/10th the data than it used to. We are investing in new ways to bring connectivity. For awareness, we are including education, health, job, Wikipedia, news in Internet.org. People who tried free basics admit how good it is.

Question: How do we stop receiving candy crush requests?

Mark: This is why such townhalls are so useful. This was the top voted questions on our thread. I told my developers that can we have a solution to this problem by the time I do my Q/A. So we are doing it now.

Question: My Question is about Oculus Rift. Wanted to ask how are you plugging that to social media. And how are you opening it for developers?

Mark: There are dev kits available for Oculus. In terms of how it fits in to our overall vision. We see our mediums on the Internet getting richer and richer. Earlier it was text. Today it is photos and videos. Tomorrow it'll be more richer video. But I don't think video is the end of the line. Video is still small screen, still 2D. That's what virtual reality and augmented reality can do.

Question: Facebook has been investing a lot on Artifical Intelligence? What are the future AI products we can expect?

Mark: AI (Artificial Intelligence) is really exciting. Soon we'll be able to build much smarter computers. With AI, its going to be less about products and making the existing ones smarter. We are working on a project where AI can describe photos to blind people.

Second example, right now the best way to let people know you are safe in terms of a crisis is by yourself or through your friends. In the future maybe satellites and other technologies can help with this.

Question: How Facebook is helping people living below poverty line?

Mark: So this is a really interesting area. I sometimes wonder about the impact I can have outside Facebook. I've been learning about the education system. Internationally we have a few investments in creating new schools throughout Africa and spreading it in India as well. And access to the Internet is really going to help students gain educational materials easily.

The other area is health and science. The US government spends on 50 times more money on curing people than preventing diseases. This shows a really big opportunity. I don't know if all diseases can be fixed in our lifetimes but maybe in the future.

Question: Hi Mark, this is Funny. My question is, if Zuckerberg ever encounters with the aliens, what superpower would he ask for?

Mark: That's a good question. What we are working with Oculus is that we are allowing people to teleport. People can be in completely different place but teleport and come together for an experience.

Question: Does Internet.org support net neutrality fully?

Mark: Net Neutrality is a principle and we do a lot to follow regulations. Like the US every other country is still figuring out what rules they want from their Internet regulations. We have supported Net Neutrality from the very beginning and we will keep on supporting it in the future. U.S is not like India where billions of people don’t have access to the Internet. Internet.org and Facebook are 100 per cent in support of Net Neutrality but also free access to Internet is also very important. So Increased access is also an important factor and we also have a moral responsibility to make Internet available for every one and give them a voice.

Question: Internet.Org is a great initiative but there have been many questions about net neutrality. I want to ask does Internet.org support net neutrality fully?

Mark: Yeah, absolutely. We've been working with authorities on regulation. This debate is there because countries are right now figuring out what net neutrality needs to be. Internet is expensive for carriers. What we are trying to do is offer low-bandwidth services. It'll be a neutral platform and we won't be a filter. What the regulation is trying to prohibit is carriers charging more for certain services That is bad.

Some proponents of net neutrality say there should be no free access. But I say if a student who doesn't have access to internet is given free access to do her homework, who is getting hurt there? The US regulations are very strong about this. There needs to be a differentiation between filtering and allowing free access to basics.

I'll leave you a thought, that people who are pushing with the petitions already have access to the internet and people who don't have internet cant sign an online petition asking for access. Don't get twisted into hurting people who don't have a voice.

Question: How was your visit to Taj Mahal?

Mark: Taj Mahal is one of the few places in the workd that is more awesome than what it’s like in pictures. And Taj is unique because it is monumental love. It is quite interesting and I am glad I had the chance to visit it.

I am always sitting in the conference rooms and they all look pretty much the same. So I was happy I could take out time to visit Agra.

Zuckerberg began his trip to India on October 28 with a visit to the Taj Mahal in Agra and described it as "even more stunning" than he had expected.

Question: What was your Eureka Moment when you came up with Facebook? How has Facebook helped us on a whole?

Mark: It wasn't long ago that I was sitting in the audience and listening to Bill Gates at Harvard. The trick is that the media likes to sensationalise eureka moment and you build something on your own.

I built the first version of Facebook because I wanted to connect to people in my school. Back then it didn't even occur to me that one day the entire world would be using it. We just kept doing the next thing and people kept saying this is just a fad. The skills you are getting here (in college) are what you will need to build your thing. You just have to keep doing and not let people get in the way.

Question: Considering the startup buzz everywhere, what according to you are the ideal elements for a start-up?

Mark: I have seen some people who are trying to start a company without figuring out what they want to do. All great companies started with people who cared about something. None of the people who built big companies thought that they would be as big as they ended up being. So my advice is focus on what you care about and not the decision to start a company.

Every good start-up is initiated by people who care about others. If you decide to start a company and start hiring like crazy then you loose your idea. If you are thinking about starting something, think about how it will impact the world and how it will help them and not just for the sake of starting a company.

Question: There comes a time in every student’s life, when they feel de-motivated. What would you say to them?

Mark: Throughout building Facebook there have been lots of challenges and you felt like you want to give up. In the media there is a bias. The bias is that I built Facebook and Steve Jobs built Apple. There are thousands of people involved.

We are people, we helped, but there were thousands of other people involved in building a project. One of the ways we maintain resilience is co-founders and co-partners who are there to help since day one. Reports suggest that companies with co-founders have made it bigger on more occasions. Sharing the work and sharing responsibilities help in smoother functioning. It is very hard to build and run something on your own.

Question: What was the decision that you took during the early days of Facebook that you regretted later?

Mark: I made all kinds of mistakes. Anything you can think of, I have made all the mistakes.

The thing that I think you should focus on is not the mistake; mistakes are the reason that makes you better. The reason why Facebook exists today is not because we didn’t do any mistake, but because we are helping people keep connected. We also have made many mistakes but we try keep improving and make the world a better place.

Mark: We are working on rolling out such notifications for missing people in India soon. There is a program in US and Canada called Amber alerts. Which puts the photo of missing children in people's newsfeeds and it has been very successful. We need to work with governments and police on this. When you have a community of 1.5 billion people you have a responsibility.