Skill, Labour, Talent for MSMEs: Meta, formerly Facebook, on Wednesday said it will train and skill 1 crore small businesses and 2.5 lakh creators in the coming three years. The announcement was made on the sidelines of its new office opening in Gurugram that would focus on training and skilling small business promoters, creators, and local communities to “enable them to both fuel and leverage the digital transformation underway in the country,” a company statement said. Meta said the office will house its largest team in India and will also be the company’s first standalone office in Asia.

The new office was inaugurated by Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, and Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship.

“We see this office as an opportunity for us to build a space that will house our largest team in the country. The office will be open to anyone who is driving change – be it creators, small business owners, entrepreneurs, artists or community leaders. The spaces here will see directed, purposeful efforts from Meta to fuel their pursuits, ideas and ambition. That is why we are embracing the ambitious goal of training 1 crore small businesses and 2,50,000 creators,” said Ajit Mohan, Vice-President & Managing Director, Facebook India (Meta).

The new centre, said Meta, will also show the “impact of new technologies on the digital ecosystem” of the country and will have a separate area for demonstrating how technologies like augmented reality and virtual reality can help sectors such as learning and education, commerce, and healthcare. The centre will also help facilitate community impact programmes around important issues such as safety training for women and children, according to the company.

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“I hope initiatives like C-FINE, where technology is being positioned to fuel entrepreneurship and innovation, and empower youngsters all around the country, take their dreams and create critical mass, size and scale. This is exactly what the power of the Internet and technology should be,” Chandrasekhar said.

In November 2021, Meta had launched two new resources for small businesses – Grow Your Business Hub and Grow Your Business Playbook. The Hub catered to businesses to find relevant information, tools, and resources curated for their business goals and mapped to the business’s growth journey, the company had said. Last year, it had announced a grant of Rs 32 crore for over 3,000 small businesses in Delhi, Gurugram, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru. In August this year, Meta had launched Small Business Loans initiative for small businesses in the country that advertise on Facebook to get credit through third-party lenders.

https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/sme/msme-skil-meta-to-skill-1-cr-small-businesses-in-3-years-opens-new-office-to-house-largest-team-in-india/2384402/