Ericsson, Nokia, Facebook, Samsung – to connect the world

"There are huge barriers in developing countries to connecting and joining the knowledge economy. Internet.org brings together a global partnership that will work to overcome these challenges, including making internet access available to those who cannot currently afford it," said Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Today, only 2.7 billion people – just over one-third of the world's population – have access to the internet. Internet adoption is growing by less than 9% each year, which is slow considering how early we are in its development. The goal of Internet.org is to make internet access available to the two-thirds of the world who are not yet connected, and to bring the same opportunities to everyone that the connected third of the world has today. The founding members of internet.org Facebook, Ericsson, MediaTek Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung – will develop joint projects, share knowledge, and mobilize industry and governments to bring the world online. These founding companies have a long history of working closely with mobile operators and expect them to play leading roles within the initiative, which over time will also include NGOs, academics and experts as well. Internet.org is influenced by the successful Open Compute Project, an industry-wide initiative that has lowered the costs of cloud computing by making hardware designs more efficient and innovative.