 "Facebook continues fight for ‘free internet’ in India, hands $1.2 mn to local start-ups")
Facebook tried to bring “free” internet to India several months ago and was shot down for its violation of net neutrality. Internet.org was seen as the company’s way of endorsing specific sites for those who were signed up for the scheme. Essentially, critics explained, Internet.org would turn the internet into a series of subscription-based channels and the grand, utopian vision that the 21st century held for the possibilities of the world wide web would be gone.
In response, Facebook last month renamed Internet.org to “Free basics” and opened up the API to allow other developers to create apps that would work with its scheme.
The social network company also launched the Innovation Challenge, an initiative to encourage the development of apps that would work with Internet.org. The challenge was split up into four categories of people that Facebook decided could use help from online tools: farmers, women, students, and migrants.
Facebook today presented one $250,000 Innovation Challenge award and two $25,000 Impact awards across each of the four categories. The company handed out a total of $1.2 million. Here’s the list of winners:
Farmers category
The Innovation Challenge Award for farming was presented to Ekutir, which supplies farmers with information on how to enhance their farming practices. It includes a tool that analyses soil and a programme that provides information on crops, soil type, seed selection and best practices for seed preparation.
Meanwhile, Farmily, a social marketplace for farmers, and Farmalytics, which uses things like soil sensors to provide analytics about farms, both won Impact Awards.
The Innovation Challenge Award for women was won by MySangham, a crowdsourcing platform for skill development. It allows job-seeking women to learn new skills from online courses and connect with interested employers.
