President Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg will take part in a Facebook Live discussion as part of a summit that aims to bring the emerging markets and big industry players closer together.
The 2016 Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) will take place in Palo Alto, California, and 1,200 entrepreneurs from 170 countries are expected to be in the audience.
The Silicon Valley event wants to tighten the ties among relevant players in the United States tech sector, the community of venture capital and global entrepreneurs.
It should be mentioned that a slew of political issues that made the headlines during the past months will be missing from the agenda. These are extremists' use of social media, the private sector and government's battle for encryption and cyber safety.
The GES is at its seventh edition, with the idea for the summit appearing in 2009 after President Obama visited Cairo. During his speech in the Egyptian capital, Obama signaled that the U.S. aims to alter its policy towards the Middle East. Since then, the White House took steps to heal the relationship with the Muslim world.
According to a Reuters report, the event reached 17,000 people so far, a majority of which come from Muslim countries.
"We wanted to discuss not just what we're against, but what we're for," says Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser.
Rhodes also mentions that the U.S. must stand for the affirmative values it promotes globally, and which are an important aspect alongside the efforts to crack down on terrorist actions.
At the GES 2016, Obama and Zuckerberg will do an interview on Facebook Live, followed by discussions with four entrepreneurs from around the world. The subsequent talks will be held through Google.
Obama's focus at the GES will drift from the possibilities of technology to counter violent extremism. The President is expected to approach subjects such as the connection between entrepreneurs in emerging markets with each other, and with potential sources of capital. This should boost the value of tech entrepreneurship in emerging markets, leading to stronger security, albeit indirectly.
The Facebook Live discussion's format is still anyone's guess, but some hints are out there. Zuckerberg did not ask users to chip in with questions for the President, so we might be looking at a pre-designed pattern for the dialogue between the two.
Keep in mind that one significant appeal of Facebook Live is audience participation, as viewers can make use of reactions and comments in real-time.
Zuckerberg and Obama have met before as hosts of a public discussion. Five years ago, the President joined the Facebook CEO in a town hall kind of meeting with.
In 2016, however, the audience will be exponentially larger. Whereas the 2011 talk was addressed to the company's employees, the GES event has the capability to reach each one of the social network's 1.65 billion users.
It is expected that the high-profile summit will bring some wind in the sails of Facebook and make its live-streaming feature more prominent. Zuckerberg recently took part in a Q&A session of himself on Facebook Live, and it featured some hilarious moments. Check out our coverage to learn more.
