HackTalk: Conor McGurk - What Coefficient Giving is Funding in AIxBio

​HackTalk: Conor McGurk (Coefficient Giving)

​What Coefficient Giving is Funding in AIxBio

​Pre-hackathon talk. Recording available after.

​The AIxBio Hackathon runs two weeks before the close of Coefficient Giving's biosecurity RFP. For teams thinking about what to build this weekend, hearing directly from a funder about what strong proposals look like is as practical as it gets.

​Conor McGurk is Chief of Staff for Biosecurity & Pandemic Preparedness at Coefficient Giving (formerly Open Philanthropy), where he works on grantmaking strategy across one of the largest philanthropic funders of global catastrophic risk work. Before joining Coefficient Giving in 2025, he co-founded and led the Safe AI Forum, an AI safety nonprofit that organized the International Dialogues on AI Safety series, bringing together Turing Award winners, former heads of state, and leading AI scientists to build consensus on global AI governance. He previously held roles in engineering management at Meta and technology strategy consulting at Deloitte, and holds a BSc in Computer Science and Philosophy from the University of British Columbia.

​He'll share what Coefficient is looking to fund in AIxBio, the kinds of project directions that tend to make strong expressions of interest, and where hackathon teams can plug into the funding pipeline. Participants leaving with a working prototype will have two weeks to turn it into an RFP submission before the May 11 deadline.

​Format: 10-15 min talk, followed by Q&A.

​Part of the AIxBio Hackathon pre-event programming.