Tag: Microsoft

UK companies win both international prizes in Microsoft’s Female Founders Competition

Stuart Mitchell

Two female-founded companies in the UK will share millions of pounds in funding after winning the second Female Founders Competition coordinated by M12, Microsoft’s venture fund. Deployed, a London-based business that has created a productivity platform, and iLoF, an AI healthcare business from Oxford, have been named Global Winners of the Enterprise Software and Deeptech prizes, respectively. They join two winners from the US, Huue and Webee, who will all share $6 million in funding from M12, Mayfield and Melinda Gates’s Pivotal Ventures. They will also be given access to…

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Microsoft announces it will be carbon negative by 2030

Stuart Mitchell

Microsoft Corp. has announced an ambitious goal and a new plan to reduce and ultimately remove its carbon footprint. By 2030 Microsoft will be carbon negative, and by 2050 Microsoft will remove from the environment all the carbon the company has emitted either directly or by electrical consumption since it was founded in 1975. At an event at its Redmond campus, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella, President Brad Smith, Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood, and Chief Environmental Officer Lucas Joppa announced the company’s new goals and a detailed plan…

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Ninja Theory is using gaming to help people with mental health issues

Stuart Mitchell

A Microsoft studio is launching a project to use video games, technology and clinical neuroscience to help people with mental health conditions and promote well-being. Ninja Theory, which was widely praised for making psychosis a key part of its popular title Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, believes that gaming could provide an effective and easy to understand way of helping people manage conditions such as anxiety. The Insight Project sees the studio work with Paul Fletcher, Psychiatrist and Professor of Health Neuroscience at University of Cambridge, to research the benefits of gaming.…

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KLM and Microsoft join forces to advance sustainable air travel

Stuart Mitchell

KLM and Microsoft have signed a Letter of Intent in Washington to explore cooperation focused on sustainable air travel. The agreement includes commitment to purchase Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), which has the potential to reduce up to 80 percent of CO2 emissions compared to fossil fuel, across the lifecycle, when used on a large scale. Building on KLM’s Corporate BioFuel Program, Microsoft will purchase an amount of SAF equivalent to all flights taken by Microsoft employees between the USA and Netherlands (and vice versa) on KLM and Delta Airlines. Now…

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New collaboration steps up fight against disinformation

Stuart Mitchell

A new industry collaboration to tackle dangerous misinformation was announced by the BBC and partners today. Major news and tech organisations will work together to protect their audiences and users from disinformation, particularly around moments of jeopardy, including elections. Earlier this summer the BBC convened a Trusted News Summit, bringing together senior figures from major global technology firms and publishing. Recent events such as the Indian elections have highlighted the dangers of disinformation and the risks it poses to democracy, and have underlined the importance of working together around shared…

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