Financial Times and Infosys Launch Free FT Schools Content for Indian Students

Infosys (NSE, BSE, NYSE: INFY), a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting, today announced the expansion of its existing collaboration with the Financial Times (FT), for advancing education in India. FT will now provide curated content to the registered users on Infosys Springboard, the free digital learning and reskilling platform for students. The users will be able to read FT news stories on different themes including, India, Education, Work & Careers, Technology, Climate and top trending news stories.

The free access will be provided via FT Schools, the FT’s philanthropic initiative to provide open FT digital access to students around the world. The programme provides world-class journalism to help students broaden their knowledge and leverage trusted articles and resources for their educational needs.

Benefits:

• Students can leverage world-class journalism from the Financial Times to broaden their knowledge and access trusted articles and resources for their educational needs.
• The collaboration aligns with Infosys' commitment to digitally skill over 10 million people by 2025 and bridge the digital divide through quality education.
• The engagement is part of a wider strategic collaboration between the Financial Times and Infosys, which also includes a subscription partnership with FT Professional for Infosys' substantial employee base.

James Lamont, Director of Strategic Partnerships, Financial Times, said, "We appreciate the next generation’s increasing need for reliable, trusted news, and we know that many students and educators around the world find FT content an invaluable resource for their studies. We are delighted to collaborate with Infosys to bring FT content to a wider audience in India.”

Thirumala Arohi, EVP and Head - Education, Training and Assessment, Infosys, said, “A key focus area for Infosys is to accelerate digital innovation and improve access to evolving skills. Infosys has made a commitment to digitally skill over 10 million people by 2025 and bridge the digital divide by leveraging its platform Infosys Springboard to democratize quality education. Through our collaboration with the Financial Times, we look forward to further deepening our portfolio of offerings from Infosys Springboard for the Indian student community."

This engagement is part of a wider strategic collaboration between the Financial Times, one of the world’s leading business news organizations, and Infosys, a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting. This includes a subscription partnership with FT Professional – which serves nearly 8,000 businesses, government, and education institutions around the world – for Infosys’ substantial employee base.

About the Financial Times

The Financial Times is one of the world’s leading business news organisations, recognised internationally for its authority, integrity and accuracy. The FT has a record paying readership of 1.2 million, more than one million of which are digital subscriptions. It is part of Nikkei Inc., which provides a broad range of information, news and services for the global business community.

OpenAI Partners Axel Springer to Deepen Beneficial Use of AI in Journalism

ChatGPT maker OpenAI has announced global partnership with Axel Springer, one of the largest mass media publishers in the European Union, to deepen Artificial Intelligence (AI) use in journolism. The two companies said that "the initiative will enrich users’ experience with ChatGPT by adding recent and authoritative content on a wide variety of topics, and explicitly values the publisher’s role in contributing to OpenAI’s products."

According to several media reports, OpenAI has agreed to pay Axel Springer SE tens of millions of euros for the right to use the media giant’s news articles and content to build its artificial intelligence systems.

For an uninitiated, Axel Springer is a German multinational mass media company, that specializes in both electronic publishing and print media. Axel Springer's publications include Business Insider, Insider and Washington news site Politico among many others. It is also a significant investor in the American digital media company Group Nine Media. The company majority owned by American investment firm KKR.

With this partnership, ChatGPT users around the world will receive summaries of selected global news content from Axel Springer’s media brands including POLITICO, BUSINESS INSIDER, and European properties BILD and WELT, including otherwise paid content. ChatGPT’s answers to user queries will include attribution and links to the full articles for transparency and further information.

In addition, the partnership supports Axel Springer’s existing AI-driven ventures that build upon OpenAI’s technology. The collaboration also involves the use of quality content from Axel Springer media brands for advancing the training of OpenAI’s sophisticated large language models.

The media offerings of Axel Springer are clustered in — current news, autos, sports, computers and consumer electronics, as well as lifestyle.

Notably, a report by media outlet Foreign Policy, "Axel Springer SE 'has a decades-long record of bending journalistic ethics for right-wing causes'."

Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer, said, “We are excited to have shaped this global partnership between Axel Springer and OpenAI – the first of its kind. We want to explore the opportunities of AI empowered journalism – to bring quality, societal relevance and the business model of journalism to the next level.”

Brad Lightcap, COO of OpenAI, said “This partnership with Axel Springer will help provide people with new ways to access quality, real-time news content through our AI tools. We are deeply committed to working with publishers and creators around the world and ensuring they benefit from advanced AI technology and new revenue models.”

Axel Springer was also the majority stake holder in CarWale, a leading automotive portal in India, until the later was acquired by CarTrade.com in 2015.

Google launches 'Journalism Relief Fund,' following Facebook

Google said Wednesday it will launch an emergency fund to help local news outlets struggling to maintain operations in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

The internet giant gave no specific figure for its fund, but said it would offer grants ranging from the "low thousands of dollars" for the smallest operations to "low tens of thousands for larger newsrooms." The move comes with the media sector facing deep cutbacks resulting from the global consumer lockdown, an intense economic slump and a retrenchment in advertising revenues that many news outlets depend on.

"Local news is a vital resource for keeping people and communities connected in the best of times," Google News vice president Richard Gingras said in a statement.

"Today, it plays an even greater function in reporting on local lockdowns or shelter at home orders, school and park closures, and data about how COVID-19 is affecting daily life." Gingras said the fund will open to outlets "producing original news for local communities during this time of crisis," with applications due by April 29.

"At the end of the process, we'll announce who has received funding and how publishers are spending the money," he said.

"We believe it is important to do what we can to alleviate the financial pressures on newsrooms, and will continue to look at other ways to help with more to announce soon." The New York Times has estimated that news outlets have cut 28,000 jobs as a result of the health crisis and subsequent economic impact.

Other outlets have furloughed journalists or announced pay cuts.

Facebook on March 30 said it was donating $100 million to support news organizations globally hurting from the coronavirus pandemic. This includes $25 million in grants and ramped up ad spending by the social media giant.

In recent months Facebook and Google have stepped up efforts to help news organisations, following criticism that their dominance of online advertising has made it difficult for media to profit from digital operations. (AFP)