AI for Good NYC x Dev Days with Microsoft Frontier Company (Climate Week Edition)

​Join the AI for Good NYC community x Microsoft Frontier Company to put AI to work on the world's most pressing problems. We invite mission-driven organizations and individuals actively seeking AI support interested in building real-world applications.

We'll explore how AI-native development is changing the way people build software, responsibly and safely. Through hands-on experiences, practical examples, and interactive learning, participants will discover new approaches to collaborating with AI, accelerating experimentation, and turning complex challenges into working solutions using the latest advances in agentic development. Attendees can expect to leave inspired, equipped and pointed towards problems worth solving.

​Agenda:

• ​9:00 – 9:15 AM – Check-in & Networking

• ​9:20 – 9:30 AM – Welcome & Introduction to AI for Good NYC and Microsoft ISD

• ​9:30 – 10:10 AM – Opening Expert Panel with Gareth Bland, Chief Data Scientist at Microsoft; Emma Cappiello, Lead of Global AI Portfolio at Rockefeller Foundation; and Nada Tarkhan, Postdoctoral Associate at MIT (bios below).

• ​10:10 – 10:45 AM – Getting Started with GitHub Copilot: Learn what Copilot is, how it works as an agentic coding partner, and how to integrate it into daily workflows

• ​10:45 – 10:55 AM – Coffee Break #1— Stretch, refill, reset after the morning sessions

• ​10:55 – 11:45 AM – Explore live demos and productivity tips across:

  • ​Agent Mode

  • ​Custom Agents

  • ​MCP Servers

  • ​Copilot CLI

  • ​Copilot SDK

  • ​Cloud Agent

  • ​Agentic Workflows

• ​11:45 – 11:55 AM – Coffee Break #2— Quick refuel before the lab

• ​11:55 AM – 12:50 PM – Hands-on Labs, Interactive Demos, and Developer Q&A. Participants can choose their stack (VS Code, CLI, etc.) and bring their problems, and experts on hand will be there to help you work through. Don't have a problem to solve? We have ideas on hand for how you can help.

• ​12:50 – 1:00 PM – Closing Remarks & Next Steps
  
  ​​Panelist Bios

  • ​Gareth Bland is Chief Data Scientist and Head of Responsible AI for Microsoft's Industry Solutions Delivery organization. He holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience and completed postdoctoral research at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research and the Ernst Strüngmann Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt. At Microsoft, Gareth leads initiatives that help some of the world's largest organizations adopt and scale AI responsibly — with a focus on agentic systems, the emerging AI-native ways teams build software, and the economics of deploying intelligence at scale, including tokenomics. His work spans Responsible AI, high-velocity engineering cultures, and capability-led transformation strategies that help organizations rethink how value is created in the age of AI. Gareth's work sits at the intersection of some of the biggest questions facing business and society: how we measure AI's impact, how we govern increasingly autonomous systems, and how leaders can harness AI to drive meaningful change while maintaining trust.

  • ​Emma Cappiello leads the Global AI Portfolio at the Rockefeller Foundation, where she designs and advances initiatives at the intersection of philanthropy, technology, and public impact. Most recently, Emma was Manager of Programs & Operations at Renaissance Philanthropy, where she helped scale the organization from 11 to 80+ team members. She built the core operating infrastructure and designed programs for the central organization and a network of 40+ affiliated funds and initiatives, supporting the deployment of over $150M across frontier science, AI, and climate. Prior to that, she served as Manager and Special Advisor at Schmidt Futures, acting as Chief of Staff to the Vice President and helping oversee a $110M portfolio spanning 10+ programs focused on talent, science, and emerging technology. Earlier in her career, she supported the development and launch of Summit Fellows and Summit Impact, a nonprofit backing 100+ entrepreneurs across 25+ countries. Emma serves on the Board of Mountaintop International, is a Board Observer at Interact, and advises The Residency on fundraising strategy and program development. She is a program designer, team builder, and connector who helps organizations transform ambitious ideas into enduring programs, partnerships, and institutions—and believes in betting on exceptional talent early.

  • ​Nada Tarkhan is a climate-risk and urban-resilience researcher working at the intersection of climate analytics, building science, and AI-driven decision-making. She recently completed her PhD in Building Technology at MIT and holds a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Her research uses AI, computer vision, and physics-based modeling to understand how buildings, infrastructure, and cities respond to climate extremes. At MIT, she developed data-driven methods for detecting extreme heat and cold events, used climate emulators to investigate future extremes, and developed thermal modeling workflows to predict risk levels in indoor environments. She is currently a Postdoctoral Associate at MIT, where her work focuses on scaling machine-learning methods for urban heat mapping. Nada has worked across academia, engineering, real estate, and technology, combining computational modeling, morphing methods, and spatial analysis to help designers, policymakers, and asset owners prepare for increasingly severe and uncertain climate futures.

​Disclaimer

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