Facebook, in partnership with Airtel Africa, just announced its launching of internet.org Free Basics in Nigeria. Free Basics provides people in countries where internet access in not easily affordable with access to useful services on their mobile phones. Such services include websites on news, employment, health, education and local information. And they are all available for free without data charges.
Internet.org is a Facebook–led initiative with the goal of bringing internet access and the benefits of connecting to the two-thirds of the world that do not have them. Facebook does this by reaching out to local telecom operators and getting them to rate for free certain sites and services that meet their criteria.
Commending the founders of Jobberman yesterday on his Facebook wall, Mark Zuckerberg wrote: “In 2009, Olalekan Elude, Ayodeji Adewunmi and Opeyemi Awoyemi started a site called Jobberman in their dorm to help connect people looking for work with companies looking to hire. Now Jobberman is one of the top 100 websites in Nigeria, and it gets 5,000 applications every day. Free Basics offers Nigerians, including 90 million people who are currently offline, the opportunity to access news, health information and services like Jobberman that were built by Nigerians and other developers across West Africa — all without having to pay for data.”
This service is available only on the Airtel network. Speaking on this, Airtel Africa’s CEO Christian De Faria said: “We’re pleased to take this big step forward in our partnership with Facebook, bringing more people online in Africa’s most populous country and helping to further narrow the digital divide”. Also, Segun Ogunsanya, MD/CEO of Airtel Nigeria said: “The partnership between Facebook and Airtel is a groundbreaking accomplishment as it marks an important milestone in making the internet accessible to every Nigeria, one person at a time and also creates opportunities for millions of people.”
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