Giving a push to his internet.org, now Free Basics, agenda Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed the farmer crisis of rural Maharashtra.
Giving a push to his internet.org, now Free Basics, agenda Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed the farmer crisis of rural Maharashtra.
He referenced the story of a soya bean farmer, Asif Mujhawar who now has access to world class health advice via Internet.org's Free Basics services. What is interesting about the post is how intelligently Zuckerberg links a present day problem to a simple yet workable solution that could to some extent help resolve issues faced by the farmer community in India. Moreover the undertone to his message in the post is that this solution is free and more importantly is scalable.
Also Read: Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates make bid for universal Internet access
What this essentially means is that several others like Mujhawar would be able to access information and benefit from it for free.
The post, quite simple in this nature reads;
Asif Mujhawar with his two children - Image: Mark Zuckerberg's facebook post
Taking the agenda forward Zuckerberg lists out the changes being made to his brainchild - Internet.org. The post continues to say;
We want to bring services like BabyCenter to more people, and that means making Internet.org clearer, safer and easier to use.
So today we're announcing significant improvements to Internet.org. We've listened to feedback from the community and made three big changes:
First, we’ve opened up the Internet.org platform. Starting today, any developer can include their services in Internet.org. This gives people the power to choose what apps they want to use.
Second, we’ve improved the security and privacy of Internet.org. We already encrypt information everywhere possible, and starting today Internet.org also supports secure HTTPS web services as well.
Third, we’ve changed the name of the app providing these free basic services to "Free Basics". We want to make it clear that the apps you can use through Internet.org are free, basic services that can give you access to essential resources like BabyCenter.
Connectivity isn't an end in itself. It’s what people do with it that matters -- like raising a healthy family. We hope the improvements we've made today help even more people get connected -- so that our whole global community can benefit together.
Zuckerberg has just opened up an entire new and potentially unexplored arena for developers and new players to play in. The world will be observing this space with rather hightened interest now, waiting to see how it all pans out.
Read his full post here -
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