Meta to skill 10 mn small businesses, 250,000 creators over three years

Its CFINE office in Delhi-NCR will be open to anyone who is driving change - creators, small business owners, entrepreneurs, artists or community leaders

Meta (formerly Facebook) on Wednesday said it aims to skill 10 million small businesses and 250,000 creators over the next three years in the country through its Centre for Fuelling India's New Economy (CFINE) in Delhi-NCR.

CFINE is housed in one of Meta's largest offices in Asia that has been set up in Gurugram.

"We see this office as an opportunity for us to build a space that will house our largest team in the country. The office will be open to anyone who is driving change, be it creators, small business owners, entrepreneurs, artists or community leaders. The spaces here will see directed, purposeful efforts from Meta to fuel their pursuits, ideas and ambition. That is why we are embracing the ambitious goal of training 10 million small businesses and 250,000 creators," said Ajit Mohan, Vice-President and Managing Director, Facebook India (Meta).

The new office will house various teams from Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology, and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, said, “Hon'ble PM Narendra Modi's policies and vision is empowering entrepreneurship and opportunities and technology is catalysing entrepreneurship and fueling growth of investments and economic growth. I hope initiatives like C-FINE, where technology is being positioned to fuel entrepreneurship and innovation, will empower youngsters all around the country, take their dreams & create critical mass, size and scale. This is exactly what the power of the Internet and technology should be.”

Chandrasekhar said all big internet companies have tremendous ability to influence the trajectory in good or bad ways for entrepreneurship, for citizens and indeed societies at large, and that technology must be harnessed for good.

He added that platforms should work to ensure that they mitigate user harm, and the narrative around Internet and technology companies continues to grow around the positivity that technology brings to people's lives.