Facebook: three priorities for the next decade

Mike Schroepfer, Facebook’s CTO, has come to Lisbon to talk about the future: “Are you ready? Let’s do this”, was the challenge he made in the main stage of the Web Summit. The Facebook chief technology officer has shared the ten-year goals for one of the most powerful companies in the world. “These are the major problems we are trying to solve for the future”, he emphasized.

This is the future: the possibility to connect with people we care about even if they are away. That is why I am so excited about the future.

1. Connect people who have no internet. “There are around 1.4 bilion people around the world who do not have access to the internet and what we want is for them to be able to join this conversation”, Schroepfer said. With internet access, Facebook’s CTO believes that anyone can be a HD video broadcaster. “Connections happen so quickly among people from all around the world. We must give a voice to people who don’t have a place in everyone else’s conversations”, he assures. Open compute project or Telecom infra project are some of the examples that depict this process.
2. Artificial intelligence. Over the last couple of years, Facebook has been working on projects connected to artificial intelligence. Every day, the world shares two million pictures via Facebook; Mike says that amount reveals a “revolution in computing and computers, which now even allows for someone who cannot see to be able to share as well and communicate through Facebook, thanks to the power of artificial intelligence”.
3. Virtual reality. In just 30 seconds, we are present and then we are not. “This feeling of being present” is the main characteristic of virtual reality, another field Facebook will be developing within the next decade. “We are suddenly on the top of a building about to collapse, or in a family home in a distant country”, he explains. But the challenge here is different: “How can we bring virtual reality into the world? How can we make this technology cheaper and more available for everyone?”, Schroepfer wonders. To that end, Facebook has been developing projects such as Oculus rift, gearVR and Standalone. “With this kind of technology we believe we can bring virtual reality to the masses”, he explained to his audience of 9,000 people, according to the Web Summit organizers.