Foundation

• The IGIC 2026 summit, organized by Smadja & Smadja Strategic Advisory, convened policymakers, investors, and technologists to determine India's strategic direction in artificial intelligence. • Experts argued that India should prioritize "frugal innovation" and vertical AI—specialized applications for specific industries—rather than attempting to compete with massive general-purpose foundation models. • This strategy leverages India's existing infrastructure, including over 2,200 Global Capability Centres employing 2.5 million professionals and more than US$20 billion in AI commitments.

Shoppers turning to online options also affects BHF, which has carried out review of retail armThe British Heart Foundation is to close about 150 shops and cut jobs, as rising costs and the shift to online shopping makes about a quarter of the charity’s high street locations commercially unsustainable.The charity carried out a review of its retail arm, which employs almost 3,700 staff, after net profit across its 640 UK stores plunged from £18.8m in 2024 to £3.6m in the year to 31 March 2025. Continue reading...

• First Foundation Labs (1FL), a life sciences AI company spun out of Luma Group, announced a collaboration with Microsoft on June 2, 2026. • The partnership aims to integrate 1FL's clinical and translational reasoning platform into Microsoft Discovery, an enterprise AI platform hosted on Azure. • This collaboration addresses the limitations of generic Large Language Models (LLMs), which often struggle to provide reliable reasoning within complex, domain-specific scientific environments.

• OpenAI’s non-profit foundation will allocate $250 million toward research analyzing how artificial intelligence affects the global economy. • This initiative marks the first specific deployment of funds following the organization's March pledge to distribute $1 billion over a 12-month period. • The research is critical for understanding the systemic shifts in labor markets and economic productivity caused by the rapid adoption of AI.

• On April 24, 2026, the White House dismissed all 22 members of the National Science Board, the oversight body for the U.S. National Science Foundation that funds research nationwide. • The NSF supports science and engineering across all 50 states and territories, with the board providing independent guidance on grants totaling billions annually. • The purge raises alarms about politicization of federal science funding, potentially disrupting peer-reviewed research in physics, biology, and engineering that drives U.S. innovation.

Positions ‘terminated, effective immediately’, says email to scientists sent on president’s behalf, in move labelled ‘dangerous attack’ on US innovationThe Trump administration has fired members of an independent board that oversees the National Science Foundation (NSF).Members of the National Science Board received an email on Friday sent from the Presidential Personnel Office “on behalf of President Donald J Trump” stating that their position was “terminated, effective immediately”. Continue reading...

Closure comes weeks after former Australian of the Year and advocate for abuse survivors says she lost speaking engagements because of a ‘smear campaign’ against herFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastChild sexual abuse survivor Grace Tame’s foundation has announced it is closing, citing challenges with long-term funding.The former Australian of the Year set up the foundation in 2021 – the year she carried the national honour for her advocacy for abuse survivors and for law reform. Continue reading...

• Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), and the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation called on the US government to officially designate journalist Shelly Kittleson as a hostage and deploy all resources for her release. • Kittleson, a US freelance reporter covering Yemen, was abducted in Sanaa on March 20, 2026, amid escalating Houthi-US tensions linked to the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran. • The groups emphasized that formal hostage status would unlock specialized US diplomatic and intelligence efforts, critical amid reports of her deteriorating health in captivity.