Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be visiting the headquarters of the social media giant Facebook in Silicon Valley’s Menlo Park for a townhall Q&A, the company’s founder Mark Zuckerberg announced on Sunday, as the Indian leader’s program in the US took shape with an obvious emphasis on business ties.
“I’m excited to announce that Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India will be visiting Facebook HQ later this month for a Townhall Q&A. I had the chance to visit Prime Minister Modi in India last year and it’s an honor to have the chance to host him here at Facebook,” Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post.
Modi is also expected to visit Googleplex, the campus of the tech giant Google in Mountain View and the factory floor of Tesla in Fremont, both in Silicon Valley. He is also expected to address the academic and student community at Stanford University in Palo Alto, though that part of the program is yet to be finalized.
He may also have a separate event with a prominent Indian company with operations in the US in an occasion that will highlight Indian contribution to the American industry and job creation.
In his Facebook message, Zuckerberg said he and Prime Minister Modi will “discuss how communities can work together to address social and economic challenges” in the event slated for Sunday, September 27 and 9.30 am local time (Sunday night 10 pm IST). He invited Facebook users to send in questions on his page promising to get to as many as possible. He also said he would post the live video on his page and it will also be on Prime Minister Modi’s page.
Launched only in 2004, Facebook has become one of the world’s most influential companies with 1.18 billion active users (more one in seven people on the planet) as of last month. It went public in February 2012, becoming one of the fastest companies to reach a market cap of $ 250 billion. Although such valuations have been questioned by business traditionalists, the company announced a revenue of more than $12 billion in 2014, mostly from advertising.
The company is expanding so rapidly that on a recent visit to the Menlo Park campus, this correspondent noted the parking lot was overflowing, with free valet parking offered to both employees and visitors (there were also reserved parking spots for expectant mothers). Inside the sprawling campus, there were at least a dozen restaurants and cafes (for free for employees; only one was paid restaurant).
The campus also has facilities such as doctor’s clinic and hair salon so as to minimize the time loss and give employees maximum time to meet the goals.
Inside one of the buildings, a giant touch screen showed 1.49 billion daily users during the month of August. Total Facebook online visitors from India on that particular day was 63 million, of whom 58 million were mobile visitors. (Agencies)