Digital journey has hardly begun: Facebook India head Kirthiga Reddy

"When we look at the future of the digital , we are at the very beginning," says Kirthiga Reddy, head, Facebook India pointing to long journey ahead.

The Indian School of Business organised the 'Digital Summit 2013' in Hyderabad on Friday and Saturday. The event took off with a talk by Reddy on the future of the digital age, Reddy spoke about five trends that would guide the way forward, beginning with the increasing spread of the mobile medium. "The world is going from the analogue to the digital and within that it is very much going mobile....This year, 2013, is when the amount of time people (with access to internet) spend before the television and before the internet and mobile is almost equal," she says.

Then she talked about innovation and information. "We are entering an age where innovation will be synonymous with how well we are able to use information," she said. Move towards increased personalization, is another trend that is catching on, according to her. The ability to deliver a targeted message to the right audience will be an important trend.     

A digital platform such as Facebook is already getting leveraged by a cross section of people, including at times the poor and those who traditionally have had no access to information. For instance, it has been used by farmers to check prices and to connect with other producers. That Facebook is also available in local languages such as Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Gujarati and Bengali has apparently only helped.

What, she feels can only hold back more people from leveraging the power of a digital platform is the lack of access to the internet. Reddy feels the trends going forward would have to be in the direction of providing more people with the access to the internet. After all, as she says: "There is research that proves that access to internet, information and opportunity is directly correlated to the creation of (more) jobs and (increase) in the GDP."