Ambani, Zuckerberg discuss India's future

At Facebook, we like to say that we are in the business of serving small enterprises. And nowhere is this more true than in India. This is especially important because small businesses here will be a key part of the global recovery going forward. And, we are focused on making sure we build the best tools for them – Zuckerberg

I firmly believe that technology, with all the digitization steps that India has taken will democratize wealth and value creation for individuals and small businesses. I believe that in the next two decades, India will grow to be among the top three economies in the world – Mukesh Ambani

Mark Zuckerberg, Chief Executive Officer of social media biggie Facebook, has interacted with Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of India's diversified business conglomerate Reliance Industries, during Facebook's Fuel for India virtual event. The first edition of Fuel for India 2020, which kicked off on Tuesday, primarily focuses on the growth opportunities in the Indian digital space. They share their perspective on broad-ranging issues like impact of Covid, and future of technologies that will shape the world. Here are edited excerpts:

Zuckerberg: With reference to Covid-19, how is India doing right now? And when do you expect things to return to normal? How did your company adapt to move forward in the middle of this pandemic?

Mukesh: The sheer magnitude of the Covid-19 pandemic, like everybody else in the world, did startle all of us in India. Every crisis presents an opportunity for new growth, and India has faced the Covid crisis with enormous resilience and resolve. Prime Minister Modi has led India from the front, and while we are not as rich a country as some of our western counterparts, being fiscally prudent, he has taken steps to take care of our vulnerable. We have produced PPEs. We used to import all our protective gear from the external world. In a matter of months, we at Reliance produced a hundred thousand PPEs, and we are now exporters from India and this happened during the Covid time. I have no hesitation in going on record that it is your investment that set the ball rolling. Not only for Jio, but for the Indian FDI which has been the largest-ever in its history. And, our partnership between Jio and Facebook will actually demonstrate that it is great for India, Indians and small Indian businesses.

Zuckerberg: What role do you see technology playing in this post-Covid world, especially as it relates to all these small businesses?

Mukesh: I firmly believe that technology, with all the digitisation steps that India has taken, will democratise wealth and value creation for individuals and small businesses. I believe that in the next two decades, India will grow to be among the top three economies in the world. But more importantly, it will become a premier digital society. It will be a modern society with young people driving it. And our per capita income will go from eighteen hundred - two thousand dollars per capita, to five thousand dollars per capita. Our mid-income or the middle class in India, which is about 50 per cent of its total number of households, will grow to three to four percent per year. And, I think that Facebook, Jio, and a lot of other companies and entrepreneurs in the world, have a golden opportunity to be in India.

Zuckerberg: As you look ahead to the future in India, what other technologies or developments are you excited about now? And where do you see the country in the next five to 10 years?

Mukesh: I really see India accelerating as a premier digital society. I see us integrating both 5G … we also think that compute and very low-latency compute is real. I think that there is a great opportunity for really bringing education and healthcare. We have democratised value creation with the drive of our Prime Minister.

Mukesh: What made you believe in India and the Jio story? Please share with us your experience as the digital architect of the world, how your global Facebook has helped people in this crisis, and your perspective of the crisis, and where you see the world today, and where it is going after you just explain to us what you've done in India?

Zuckerberg: We started this to help give people a tool to stay connected with their friends, and then expand to friends and family and communities, and a lot of this just ends up being a universal human phenomenon. And what we have seen is that, India is actually home to the largest communities in the world, across Facebook and WhatsApp and getting there on Instagram, as well. There is a big trend of financial inclusion ahead, and how the ease of payments is going to be such a big deal for commerce. We just launched WhatsApp payments in India last month. That was possible because of the UPI system that has been built in India. India is the first country in the world to do anything like this. So, we're grateful to be able to support this kind of innovation and to help to work, to create more prosperity, and help achieve a more Digital India.

I think that a lot of other places around the world are going to be better off when they follow some of this lead that India has set, in creating public goods like this. So there's really a tremendous amount to be inspired by, with what is going on in India now.

Mukesh: All of us would love to know your views on how the world is changing, and what you and Facebook are thinking about it, and what you see the future as. Just give us your perspective

Zuckerberg: Technology is giving individuals' power and opportunities that were previously only held by large organisations. One of the things that I think is so powerful about the internet is it provides individual entrepreneurs and small businesses access to the same kind of tools for reaching new customers and doing sophisticated analytics and communication that previously only bigger companies would have been able to do.

One trend that I focus a lot on is that as people, we are always looking to connect with other people and share our experiences in the richest way that we can. So, if you look back to the beginning of the internet, most of the internet was text. We would text each other, chat, share our experiences but then connections got better. And then we got to photos being the primary way that we shared. Now, a lot of sharing is through photos and we are now on the next step with 4G and coming 5G networks - video is really becoming the primary way that people share. And video is just a lot richer of a medium than photos even can be.