Facebook CEO Expresses Interest to Cooperate with Indonesia

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited Indonesia yesterday. The 30 year old billionaire met with elected President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo at Jakarta City Hall to express his views.

After a private discussion with Jokowi, Zuckerberg said that he is very interested to work together with Indonesia to increase low-cost internet access. Zuckerberg would really like to help 240 million Indonesians to have access to the internet. "To help them stay connected with each other, increase business, and create new job opportunities," he said.

He also asked the government to increase the internet's penetration, which includes providing a solution for infrastructure issues and improve data cost efficiencies. "We think that a country should focus on certain things that can be done using the internet, including creating new innovations," said Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg's visit to Indonesia is part of the global initiative program of Internet.org and the 'e-blusukan' program initiated by Jokowi.

Commenting on Zuckerberg's proposal, Jokowi said he will review the plan. "This is a brand new thing. We have not decided on which platform to use, so we must calculate possible losses first," he said. The former governor of DKI Jakarta also said that he will consider the use of local made platforms such as Kaskus for the purpose of information distribution.

PUTRI ADITYOWATI