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Now this is what we call good corporate social responsibility.
On Tuesday, the social media giant launched a new initiative to offer entrepreneurial and technology skills to small businesses in Sao Paulo’s biggest slum, a trial program eyeing Brazil’s huge and increasingly lucrative “favelas” (that’s what they call informal settlements in Brazil).
Under the program, computer use and classes will be offered to entrepreneurs in the poorer slum district of Heliopolis to help them reach more consumers. The training program, dubbed “Facebook in the community,” puts the company inside a largely uncharted social media market.
Yesterday, the great man himself, Marc Zuckerberg, shared a photo of a partially hidden tricycle driver to announce that FB is “one step closer to connecting the world as we launched Internet.org in the Philippines today. Now everyone in the country can have free access to internet services for health, education, jobs and communication on the Smart network.”
What is Internet.org? In simple terms, it’s an app that will give Internet to those people who don’t have it. In the photo above, for example, he cites Jaime, a tricycle driver from Manila, who uses Facebook and the Internet to stay in touch with loved ones who moved to Dubai.
“With this app, people can browse a set of useful health, employment and local information services without data charges. By providing free basic services via the app, we hope to bring more people online and help them discover valuable services they might not have otherwise,” explains Internet.org’s website.
In the Philippines, those basic Internet services include BabyCenter, Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action — MAMA Global, The Girl Effect and Facts for Life.
“When people are connected, they get access to new opportunities, and we all benefit from their contributions. The girls in this picture (above) — Jessica, Janessa and Jussa from Puerto Princesa in the Philippines — did not have access to formal schooling, but thanks to mobile teachers and special apps, they’re learning to read and write,” writes Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.
The Philippines is the first country in Southeast Asia that will have this app. There are 30-million Facebook users in the Philippines.
