In partnership with the U.N., Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Sept. 26 that the company would work to bring Internet access to refugee camps.
The announcement came during Zuckerberg’s visit to the Sustainable Development Summit held by the U.N. where he gave a keynote speech, met with the President of the U.N. General Assembly and reportedly gave Bono a virtual tour of “We the Peoples Hub.”
“More than four billion people don’t have a voice online,” said Zuckerberg during his keynote address, possibly reiterating the access issues the Facebook-led project, Internet.org, is working to address. Launched in 2013, Internet.org has the goal of reaching the parts of the world that don’t currently have the resources to enable Internet access to provide services including Facebook, weather info, Google search, job sites and Wikipedia, at least according to the resources that were available with the Internet.org app.
No specificity was yet given in terms of a timeline for refugee camps to receive Internet access. The launch of the Internet.org app in July 2014 however had people in Zambia accessing basic services, which has since expanded to Kenya and Colombia among other countries.
Although a FAQ page seeks to clear any monetary motivation behind the project, according to an article from The New York Times Zuckerberg also said, “It’s not all altruism,” in regards to reaching a previously untapped audience, and followed up saying, “We all benefit when we are more connected.”
