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When Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg will hold a Townhall Question and Answer session at IIT-Delhi tomorrow to connect with Indians only few students will be able to see him face to face as the hall has a seating capacity for 1,100, but only 900 of the seats are reserved for students.
“As he venue of the town hall is too small to accommodate several thousand students of the Institute. Only one in nine students will get an entry to the hall and they have been selected through a lottery,” said an official of IIT Delhi.
When an invite was posted on the IIT website, 1,300 students filled up the application form in the first two hours. Facebook discontinued the link after it got 3,500 applications.
"Town hall has always been popular and this time it is getting more popular as Mark is a role model for most of the students. Also as the focus of both the institute and students is moving towards entrepreneurship and innovation, his visit has created a lot of enthusiasm,” said a faculty member from IIT Delhi.
Zuckerberg is supposed to speak for 15 minutes and spend the next hour answering questions from the audience particularly from the students.
“I am very excited about the event but I would been glad If my friends had also got entry,” said Nishant, a B. Tech student.
There would be no direct questioning-the move has disappointed the several students.
“I think this is a historic moment for the Institute. There was not so much of enthusiasm amongst the student in any event of Town hall. This is something unprecedented,” said a faculty member.
"I wanted to ask Zuckerberg a question on the Internet.org. As I would want to know what technology support FB will provide for this”, said another student.
"It is mainly because India is one of the countries with largest users outside of the US for the company," said a spokesperson of Facebook.
Zuckerberg has previously said, “India is personally very important to the history of our company here. This is a story that I have not told publicly and very few people know."
“Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has become more popular among the Indian after his hosting of the Town Hall meeting for PM Modi in Silicon Valley. So he has got instant and overwhelming response,” said a post from a social networking site.
