Mark Zuckerberg's day in Rome began with a run from the Circus Maximus to the Colosseum, continued with an audience with the Pope and a meeting with Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, finally ending with a conference at Luiss during which the founder and CEO of Facebook spoke for more than an hour in front of university students capitolina.
“Rome holds a special place in my heart – he wrote a few days ago – I have studied Latin and history for many years. I like to visit the houses of my favorite historical figures, like Caesar Augustus, who created the pax romana: 200 years of world peace. I love Rome so much that Priscilla and I went there for our honeymoon when we got married!”.
The meeting with the Holy Father at Santa Marta lasted about twenty minutes. Greg Burke, new director of the Vatican press office, discloses the topics covered. There was talk "of how to use communication technologies to alleviate poverty, encourage a culture of encounter, and send a message of hope, especially to the most disadvantaged people". Zuckerberg gave the Pope a model of the Aquila, the solar drone with which "we will bring the internet connection to places that don't have it yet".
Shortly after, Zuckerberg went to Palazzo Chigi where he was received by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. For his institutional meetings, the entrepreneur took off the traditional gray shirt with which we are used to seeing him and wore a jacket and tie.
With Premier Matteo Renzi, as well as the earthquake in central Italy, "we talked about how technology can help create jobs and growth in Italy. I told the premier that I am particularly enthusiastic about the work being done in Europe on artificial intelligence”. This is what the number one of Facebook writes in a post published on his own social network. “As part of the Facebook Al Research program, we are providing 26 GPU servers to some research institutes in Europe, including the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in Italy: they have a large artificial intelligence and computer vision program and we hope that this new technology helps students and professors to do even more”, writes Zuckerberg, publishing a photo of him and Renzi as they show one of the Facebook data center servers that he gave to the head of government.
During his lecture at Luiss, the number one from Menlo Park could not fail to refer to the earthquake of August 24 and the way Facebook "reacts to tragedies". "We started working with the Red Cross - said the 32-year-old entrepreneur - We donated 500 dollars and made the Facebook platform available to them for anything they might need".
“Success is not measured by sharing photos – said Zuckerberg – but by how much our community can help in the event of natural disasters, such as an earthquake. In the case of Italy, the Safety Check system worked well. This is the heart of our mission – he added – we will work more on this in the future, our community to be strong must have the tools to intervene in difficult situations”.
“I was also struck by a restaurant – he concluded – which has posted on its Facebook profile that for each plate of amatriciana it will give one euro for aid to the earthquake victims. She also sent other restaurants to do the same and now over 700 restaurants have signed up. And this shows the potential of our tool”.
