 "Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg with Sunil Bharti Mittal, founder and chairman, Bharti Enterprises at the latter's office in New Delhi (pic: Sanjay Sharma)")
Facebook co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg smiled much more at a ‘town hall’ meet at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, on Wednesday than he did on his first visit to India exactly a year ago. The Taj Mahal, which left the 31-year-old billionaire stunned on Tuesday, could have had its effect.
A few minutes after noon, the scheduled time for the interaction at the Dogra Hall of IIT, Zuckerberg appeared on stage amid thundering applause in his trademark grey T-shirt and dark denims. But the hoodie was missing.
The wait was long for the 1,000-odd people (students, professors, tech developers and some industry executives) who got a seat in the auditorium, where Bollywood music was being played till the man of the moment arrived. One was told to reach by 10:30 am for the 12 o’ clock event, even as students who didn’t make it through the draw of lots tried their luck for empty seats.
Once inside the premises, it was over to American security and Facebook executives from the California headquarters, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a few weeks ago addressed a similar meet.
But, there was no question on Modi’s Bay Area interactions. The opening question was, “Why are you taking so much interest in India? Be honest”, after the audience was told about the do’s and don’t’s — no question on financials or acquisitions. Take pictures and use Facebook as much as you want, but don’t use flash, the moderator advised. A thousand phones went up to click at the same time, while Zuckerberg spoke of India being the world's largest democracy and “if you want to connect everyone to internet, you just can't leave India out”. Facebook already has 130 million users in India, second largest base after the US.
He laughed as he replied to a query by a student named Phani (pronounced funny) on how he would use any supernatural power, and while replying to another on how he handled Candy Crush (a popular game on Facebook) invites. He appeared to speak from the heart when it came to Internet.org, renamed Free Basics by Facebook.
At least 50 per cent of the one-hour interaction was spent on his views on Internet.org and net neutrality, a controversial matter in India. Making a strong pitch for the movement, he said: “I don't believe zero rating is against net neutrality.”
To a question on whether Internet.org supported net neutrality, Zuckerberg said, “Absolutely. Net neutrality is an important principle and we are doing a lot to push it. With Free Basics, we are letting developers offer zero-rated services. This is powerful. We are not being a filter of any content going through that.” Referring to the controversy in India, he said “some of the people advocating net neutrality say there should be no zero rated internet. But, it is important to ensure more people get on to the internet.”
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg with Sunil Bharti Mittal, founder and chairman, Bharti Enterprises at the latter's office in New Delhi (pic: Sanjay Sharma)
Perhaps, to talk on these issues, Zuckerberg met Bharti Group Chairman Sunil Mittal, too. The group had a few months ago defended the under-fire ‘Zero Airtel’ scheme. In fact, Airtel Africa has partnered with Facebook to promote internet usage through Internet.org. In India, Facebook has chosen Reliance Communications to launch its Internet.org service, which offers free basic internet services to the unconnected users across the country.
Immediately after the Q&A session, Zuckerberg met a dozen entrepreneurs, including Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Practo.com co-founder and managing director Shashank ND, and top executives from Bookmyshow.com and Bharatmatrimony.com. “We had in depth discussions on how businesses can use Facebook and how it is working with various sectors. The importance of Free Basics and how companies can reach people, who do have internet access, was also discussed,” said Vir Kashyap, chief operating officer, Babajob.com, one of the entrepreneurs invited for the event.
At IIT, students were most impressed with Mark’s passionate views on Internet,org. He should have talked more on it, said Sanjay, a student, when asked about any disappointment after the interaction. Another computer science student Ritesh said, “I had expected him to talk about job creation in India, and opening engineering offices in India.”
However, Zuckerberg gave his audience enough talking points. He promised investments in India in the education sector soon, without specifying the details. Focus on health sector is another area that he’s looking at. His take on an ideal start-up trended on social media. “There is a trend that people decide to start a company and then think about what they want to do… Ideally, a start-up should not start with the decision of setting up a company.” Has he been demotivated as a student or later, he was asked. The Harvard dropout joked about his student life and said: “I never had a revelation that Facebook would be this big.” And, according to Zuckerberg, he’s made mistakes of all kinds that one can think of. “Don’t stress over mistakes. People will forgive you if you are trying to do something good…”
Warming up to the students, he said he and his wife Priscilla Chan were expecting a daughter and that he would like to share the video of the first footsteps with friends and family on social media. He said that if he got super powers, he would like to play ping pong with a friend in space or undersea wearing a simple headset.
He also hesitantly spoke about a girl wanting to take a selfie at Taj with him. “I patted her,” he said with a blush. As if in cue, he left the stage hurriedly after the session, only to re-emerge as the 1,000-plus audience stood up and, this time, Zuckerberg got a photo-op with students from what he called one of the best institutes of the world.
(With inputs from Karan Choudhury and Mansi Taneja in New Delhi)
