As of now, there are about 7 billion people on Earth. Around 4.5 billion people don't have a connection to the Internet. Mark Zuckerberg wants to change that, starting with his new campaign, Internet.org.
"We want to make it so that anyone, anywhere -- a child growing up in rural India who never had a computer -- can go to a store, get a phone, get online, and get access to all of the same things that you and I appreciate about the Internet," Zuckerberg said in an interview with CNN's Chris Cuomo, which you can see below. "They're going to use it to decide what kind of government they want, get access to healthcare for the first time ever, connect with family hundreds of miles away that they haven't seen in decades."
So, how is Zuck going to do it? Well, it will mostly be a mobile initiative at first. By teaming up with Samsung, Ericsson, Nokia and Qualcomm, Zuck wants to put more Internet connected phones in peoples' hands; and one of those requirements is making these devices affordable. Zuck has already invested $1 billion into the Internet.org campaign, and is expecting to do more.
"Connectivity is a human right," Zuckerberg said.
Before we give him the title as Internet hero, though, let's not forget that if Zuckerberg gets 5 billion people connected to the internet, that means there is potential for 5 billion new Facebook accounts. Which means: 5 billion new people to advertise to. There is money to be made, especially when there have been talks about Facebook's growth slowing.
[via CNN]
