KOLKATA: At the first Facebook Fuel For India virtual event, Instagram said it is democratising expression for people in India. And to underscore its commitment, the photo and video sharing platform extended the testing of Instagram Lite to India, and announced the second edition of the ‘Born on Instagram’ creator program.

‘Facebook Fuel For India’ is being held to showcase the most impactful stories of change in India, and the way the Facebook family of apps are bringing together products, programs and plans to fuel India’s progress. Instagram showcased the slew of new features in the past few months that have either debuted or been beta-tested in the country, which includes Reels, the Reels tab and Live Rooms.

Now Instagram has made Instagram Lite available to people in India. The app is less than 2MB in size and is built to deliver the core Instagram experience to those who are currently not familiar with the app. It also brought back ‘Born on Instagram’ to equip the next generation of content creators with best practices to use the platform, and enable them with collaboration and mentorship opportunities. 

Instagram VP product Vishal Shah said, “India is such an important country for us and has been a testing ground for innovation, thanks to the natural creativity and entrepreneurial spirit we see here. With the test of Instagram Lite, and the next edition of ‘Born on Instagram’, we’re aiming to democratise expression and creativity for a greater number of people in India. We’re also hoping to gain valuable insights before a global rollout of Instagram Lite.”

Early this year, there was research conducted in India to ascertain the attractiveness and comprehension of new products, and one barrier that was observed was the compromised internet experience, as a result of low memory phones and heavy-sized apps. This set the context for the test of Instagram Lite, and India is a primary test country for it.

The app is made for Android and this new version has improved speed, performance, and responsiveness. The experience is similar to the core Instagram app experience, though there are some features that are not currently supported such as Reels, Shopping and IGTV. The app will be available in Bangla, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu.