Knowledge Ecosystem

AI + Urban Heat Conference 2026

On 22 July 2026, TecHive convened global leaders from the United Nations, city governments, academia, and industry for the AI + Urban Heat Conference — a deep dive into how Artificial Intelligence can help cities forecast, prepare for, and respond to extreme heat.

Keeping Schools Cool in a Warming World

The presentation examined how schools can prepare for increasing heat exposure while maintaining safe learning environments and continuity of operations. Heat resilience was approached as more than a question of installing cooling equipment, requiring a combination of assessment, prioritisation, physical interventions, operational adjustments and longer-term planning.

- Juan Camilo Pinzón

Harnessing AI to Drive Urban Heat Governance, Investment and Action to Reduce Heat Risk

The presentation examined extreme heat through three connected dimensions: preventing the creation of additional heat risk, reducing existing risk, and strengthening the capacity to absorb heat shocks when they occur. Addressing these dimensions together connects long-term urban planning and risk reduction with seasonal preparedness and operational response.

- Marc Gordon

Use of Drone Technology in Urban Heat Preparedness

The presentation examined how drone technology can provide high-resolution, localized information on urban heat exposure and support more targeted preparedness and response. Drone-based thermal observation can complement broader environmental, satellite and ground-based data by capturing conditions at specific locations and times.

- Hrishikesh Heble

Heat-Health-Risk Nexus: Flash Back and Feed Forward for the Evolution of Heat Risk Management

The presentation examined the evolution of heat-risk management through a public health and emergency preparedness perspective, with particular attention to the development and implementation of Heat Action Plans in India.

- Saurabh Dalal

Delivering 24-Hour Urban Heat Solutions

The presentation examined how extreme heat affects people whose health and livelihoods depend on working in exposed conditions, highlighting the importance of designing heat resilience solutions around real-world exposure rather than relying only on conventional measurements.

- Kathy Baughman McLeod

Heat-Health Integration: Building Urban heat resilience in India

The presentation examined the development of Heat Action Plans in India and the challenge of making them more localized, scalable and actionable. A central focus was the need to move beyond general heat information towards systems that can identify when action is required, where risks are concentrated and what measures should follow.

- Dr. Pushp Bajaj

Simulation Ready: From Anticipation to Action

Explores how organizations can strengthen disaster preparedness and emergency response through the integration of AI, anticipatory action, and simulation-based training. Covers hazard monitoring, vulnerability mapping, AI-driven simulations, and the ALERTSim platform as tools for proactive disaster risk reduction.

AI in Emergency Management: Tool or Decision-Maker?

AI is already embedded in emergency management. The question is no longer whether to use it — it's who is accountable when it's wrong. This piece examines the governance principles that must shape AI deployment in emergency operations: explainability, equity, and resilience, with human accountability at the center.

- William Craig Fugate

Session Insights and Key Outcomes – AI + DRR: Intelligence for Resilience

AI is not merely enhancing disaster risk knowledge — it is fundamentally reshaping how risk is defined, interpreted, and operationalized. This session outcome explores the shift from data abundance to decision-grade intelligence, the indispensable role of human judgment, and why resilience is as much a governance challenge as a technical one.

- Jono Anzalone

How do you see an early investment in AI-enabled DRR architectures as central to climate resilience, economic stability, and development pathways?

An exploration of AI's transformative role in disaster risk reduction (DRR), moving beyond hazard forecasting to anticipating real-world impacts on communities and infrastructure. Covers the shift from traditional geospatial tools to GeoAI, the economic case for resilience investment, and the need for responsible, inclusive, and ethical AI governance.

- Sanjay K Srivastava

AI and the Blind Spots of Disaster Risk Knowledge

A critical examination of AI's limitations in disaster risk reduction, focusing on biased training data skewed toward the Global North, the opacity of deep learning models, and unresolved governance challenges. Proposes mitigation approaches including inclusive data governance, participatory model development, and bias audits.

- Soenke Ziesche

AI and Immersive Technology for Emergency Response

During an emergency, the primary focus is always on saving lives — People, Asset, Community and Environment. Using the Bow Tie model, we show the potential for sources of escalation and how significant having a trained and competent team adds to preventative and response controls. Through the use of digitization, training is now much more effective and available for response teams.

- Ryan Bernard, Incident Commander

From What If to What Now to What Might Be

Emergency management is crucial for saving lives, the environment, and assets, relying on human decision-making, coordination, and leadership. Industrialization has improved living standards but also increased the potential for major accidents. With global climate change and the interconnectedness of globalization, large-scale incidents are more frequent and impact families across nations.

- Ashish Kulkarni, Product Designer, ALERTSim

Strategies for Globalization of Knowledge

Know practical strategies that debottleneck flow of knowledge and the various technological platforms that enables knowledge identification, creation, storage and dissemination. Up until 2018, Knowledge management was under the domain of IT; it was carved as a function in its own right, through ISO 30401:2018 standard. This makes knowledge management human centric.

- Ashwina Das, Director Strategy & Growth