Blog

Hello,

The BYJU’S saga is getting intense. 

Co-founder and CEO Byju Raveendran maintains that the edtech platform is in compliance with all applicable foreign exchange laws and that it has brought in more FDI than any other startup. 

The CEO’s written assurance to employees came a day after the Enforcement Directorate searched three premises in Bengaluru linked to the company over alleged foreign exchange law violations. Searches at Think & Learn Pvt Ltd (BYJU’S parent company) yielded “various incriminating documents and digital data was seized”, ED said.

Now for some news about AI. 

In what appears to be taken straight out from Ray Bradbury’s stories, a Swiss public radio station aired a programme entirely run by AI last week. At Couleur 3, the voices of the presenters were cloned with the help of the software company Respeecher. 

And now all we can think about is a lone radio in a desolate world playing an AI-run programme on a loop. 

Also, ChatGPT can apparently give medical advice that is more empathetic than human doctors. A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine used questions from Reddit’s r/AskDocs and compared real doctors’ answers to AI responses. When a panel of medical experts reviewed the results, ChatGPT won by a landslide. In fact, the panel preferred ChatGPT’s answers 79% of the time. 

Can you spot the difference between a real doctor and AI? Read the answers, here. 

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Skiff wants Indians to say ‘bye’ to Gmail
• The making of footballer Aditi Chauhan
• Meet the top innovators of the week

Here’s your trivia for today: When was the first May Day celebrated in India?

Startup

Skiff wants Indians to say ‘bye’ to Gmail

Gmail has over 1.5 billion users worldwide. Its parent, Alphabet, has come under criticism for snooping on its users and selling their information to advertisers on more than one occasion. 

San Francisco-based Skiff is hoping that Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022 and the awareness around privacy-first solutions will finally nudge Indians to give its end-to-end encrypted email service a try, as it aims to grow to five million users in the next couple of years. 

Safe and sound:

• Founded by Stanford graduates Milich and Jason Ginsberg (Chief Technology Officer) in 2020, Skiff launched its first product, Pages, to write and collaborate on notes, documents, and wikis in 2021. 
• On Skiff, users do not need to part with any information—personal or otherwise—to sign up for its products. All they need to do is create an account with their username and password. 
• Of its 650,000 users, 53% are Windows users, 18% are Android users, and 11% are on iOS. 

Sports

The making of footballer Aditi Chauhan 

Despite suffering from an ACL injury and missing the Indian Women’s League that started on April 26, footballer Aditi Chauhan is confident of making a strong comeback.

Having played for the Indian team for the past 14 years as a goalkeeper, Chauhan is one of women’s football’s most consistent names—both on the national and the club circuit. She led Gokulam Kerala FC to two wins in the Indian Women’s League (IWL) in 2018-19 and 2021-22.

The keeper:

• Chauhan started her passion project, She Kicks Football Academy, in 2019. 
• An initiative of the Aditi Chauhan Foundation, the academy supports underprivileged girls to become football players.
• The club gives exposure to a competitive environment and a platform to be scouted by the national team or other professional clubs.

Interview

Meet top innovators of the week

In the latest episode of Starting Up with Shradha Sharma, YourStory hosted Nutrizoe, ExemplaryAI, Regrow Biosciences, and Future of Army Officers.

Pitch perfect:

• Founded by Richa Pendake, Nutrizoe is a women’s nourishment startup that focuses on providing solutions for the puberty and menopause phase–think period cramps, fertility problems, pregnancy issues, and postpartum recovery. 
• Software platform ExemplaryAI offers features designed to help businesses and individuals create high-quality transcripts and subtitles for audio and video content using artificial intelligence. 
• Founded by Satyen Sanghavi, Yash Sanghavi and Jill Bhanushali, Regrow Biosciences has established a premium cord blood stem cell bank called Biocell. 

News & updates

• A new record: Barcelona brought on 15-year-old forward Lamine Yamal in their 4-0 win over Real Betis on Saturday to make him their youngest-ever player in La Liga. The Catalan club said he was their second-youngest player of all time, behind Albert Almasque in 1902, who played in the Macaya cup at 13 years, 11 months and six days old.
• The Cooldown: China’s manufacturing activity unexpectedly shrank in April, official data showed, raising pressure on policymakers seeking to boost an economy struggling for a post-COVID lift-off amid subdued global demand and persistent property weakness.
• AI regulation: The European Union is likely to reach a political agreement this year that will pave the way for the world’s first major law on artificial intelligence, the bloc’s tech regulation chief, Margrethe Vestager, said on Sunday.

When was the first May Day celebrated in India?

Answer: On May 1, 1923, in what was then called Madras.

We would love to hear from you! To let us know what you liked and disliked about our newsletter, please mail [email protected]. 

If you don’t already get this newsletter in your inbox, sign up here. For past editions of the YourStory Buzz, you can check our Daily Capsule page here.