By IANS/RIA Novosti,
Moscow : Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev met Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg Monday to discuss the social media giant’s potential cooperation with Russia’s burgeoning innovation sector.
Zuckerberg arrived in Moscow to connect with Russian start-up developers to beef up Facebook’s global presence and recruit Russian talent for the company.
The two men also discussed the social network’s potential collaboration with the Skolkovo innovation complex – dubbed Russia’s “Silicon Valley” – which Medvedev has personally overseen as a pet project in recent years.
“I will discuss with the representatives of these companies and will try to inspire them to create new products, new applications, which I am quite sure will appeal to Russian users,” Zuckerberg said, according to the transcript of the meeting.
Russia is among the world’s few countries in which Facebook is not the top social network. Vkontake, closely modelled after Facebook, is Russia’s largest social network, with an estimated 33 million users.
During the meet, Medvedev also told Zuckerberg about himself being among Russia’s estimated 10 million Facebook users.
After their meeting, Zuckerberg reportedly presented Medvedev with a T-shirt featuring the URL address of the prime minister’s Facebook page.