Mark Zuckerberg to speak at Internet.org summit in India

 3rd October 2014    PR News 
 Jade Harding

In a bid to address the barriers to internet access, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, will keynote at the first internet.org summit in New Delhi next week.

The summit is set to discuss the findings of a new study released by McKinsey & Company titled ‘Offline and falling behind: Barriers to Internet adoption’, with research conducted in collaboration with Facebook.

Some of the findings include:

• There are currently 4.4 billion people without internet access
• The offline population is disproportionately rural, low income, elderly, illiterate and female
• An estimated 3.8 billion – 4.2 billions individuals will still lack internet access in 2017

India specifically is grouped with Egypt and Indonesia as the countries that face the greatest challenges with respect to incentive and infrastructure. Although India’s internet adoption is growing, the current penetration is still only 15%.

The study, alongside an ‘Internet Barrier Index’, hopes to help Government and industries facilitate the developmental problem.

Mark Zuckerberg will speak more about these issues at the summit during his visit to India next week, as well meeting Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, to collaborate on ways to accelerate connectivity in India.