Najib visits Facebook and Google offices

Google executive Caesar Sengupta (left) taking Najib on a tour around the Google headquarters at Mountain View, San Francisco. - BERNAMA

SAN FRANCISCO: It was another enlightening day for Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak in the Silicon Valley as he met with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and visited the Google office.

Najib, who is on a three-day working visit to the Silicon Valley, spent half a day each at  the social media giant's' head office in Menlo Park and the search engine headquarters in Mountain View on Tuesday.

"The experience is very very interesting, an eye-opener not only products but also the lifestyle, especially the culture of innovation.

"How do we promote the culture of innovation. It's not about the hardware, it's not about the regulations and incentives but also about the way of live and the culture of innovation which is important because that's the underpinning for innovation to really succeed," he told the Malaysian media following him on the trip.

The Prime Minister said during his visit to Facebook, the company had expressed a willingness to work with the Malaysian Government on its efforts to further engage the people to learn more on what they wanted.

The offer by Facebook would also enable the Government to inform the people on its latest policies.

Malaysia has among the biggest number of Facebook users in the world, being ranked 18th with more than 12.7 million users.

Najib's three-hour visit yo Google saw him trying out the latest innovative products including Google Glass and the Google driverless car.

Google Glass is a wearable computer with optical head-mounted display that can communicate with the Internet via natural language voice commands.

The Prime Minister was also taken a ride on the Google car around the company's compound.

The two visits on Tuesday were part of a series of high-level discussions and demonstrations for the Prime Minister's "experiental visit" to Silicon Valley organised by the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC).

MDeC is the driver of Malaysia's Digital Economy Initiative, Digital Malaysia and the National ICT Initiative, MSC Malaysia.

The Prime Minister will be travelling to New York on Wednesday to attend the United Nations General Assembly.

(Source: The Star Online)