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| While at an event hosted by Carlos Slim in Mexico last month, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook will work through Internet.org to bring Internet to the 60 million Mexicans who are still not connected. |
Mexican Tycoon Carlos Slim Helu and Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg are discussing ways of joining together to bring the Internet to everybody on the planet. The Slim and Zuckerberg camps have started talks "about the possibility of doing something together," Arturo Elías Ayub, Slim’s spokesperson and son-in-law, said.
That "something," Elías explained, would be a philanthropic, more than a business, partnership with Slim’s charitable foundations. Elías did not say who is involved in the talks.
Zuckerberg announced last month in Mexico City, where he was invited by Slim, that Facebook will work with Mexico through the Internet.org project to bring Internet to the 60 million Mexicans who are still not connected.
Before a large audience of Mexican youth, Zuckerberg said: "What we really care about is connecting everyone in the world, even if it means that Facebook has to spend billions of dollars over the next decade making this happen." Zuckeberg believes connectivity is a basic "human right." About 4.4 billion people in the world have no access to the Internet.
Internet.org was launched last year by Facebook, the world’s largest social networking company, and a handful of mobile phone companies, to make Internet access affordable to billions of people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In the past year Internet.org helped nearly 3 million people around the world gain access to the Internet and Facebook by working with cellphone operators.
América Movil, Slim’s telecom monopoly, currently has 70 percent of Mexico’s mobile phone market, and 80 percent of landlines. Critics note that Slim’s and Zuckerberg’s push to bring millions to the online world is not only being driven by philanthropy but also commerce.
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This week, in an interview with Bloomberg news, Slim obliquely addressed his partnership with Zuckerberg. When asked about Zuckerberg’s September visit to Mexico, Slim said they discussed giving "broadband access to all, education, and other issues that are very important for this new society of knowledge and technology."
Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, ranked high among the nation’s top philanthropists in 2013, according to Forbes’ latest report. In 2012, they gave the Silicon Valley Community Foundation $500 million and in 2013, nearly $1 billion. In 2010, Zuckerberg and Chan founded Startup: Education, a charity that gives millions in donations to support public school systems in troubled US cities.
Slim is relatively new to philanthropy which he embraced reluctantly. He once said that he dislikes "going around like Santa Claus" giving money. But last year Institutional Investor noted that Slim is "getting serious" about giving away parts of his fortune. He is rapidly developing as "one of the foremost philanthropists outside the US," the publications said.
The endowments of his two main charitable vehicles–the Carlos Slim Foundation and the Telmex Foundation–have reached $5.5 billion and $2.5 billion respectively. Elías Ayub confirmed the figures.
This week Slim was honored for his philanthropic work by the Friars Foundation at New York’s Waldorf Astoria.
Slim is the richest person in the world, with a net worth that Forbes estimates at $80.9 billion. With a net worth currently estimated by Forbes at $33.1 billion, Zuckerberg ranks #14 richest in the world.
Original Story
