Jacksonville is experiencing industrial transformation through automation and technology. The recent GitHub Copilot Developer Days event, the upcoming Tech Coast Conference (TCC), and the Star Catcher funding milestone are all indicators of North Florida's advancements in AI, engineering, and technology.
"Terminator is coming." — One of the speakers from Dev Days, summing up the inevitability of tech growth while acknowledging the angst of acceleration.
Calling all North Florida Devs
On May 7th, NLP Logix sponsored a GitHub Copilot Dev Days gathering at The Link in Nocatee. Dev Days focus on using the AI-coding assistant developed by GitHub and OpenAI. Developers use GitHub Copilot to increase speed and productivity, which makes coding easier.
"GitHub Copilot Dev Days is a significant global series, and it is a big deal to host one of these gatherings here in Florida," said Matt Berseth, Co-Founder and CAO at NLP Logix.
After Katie Bakewell urged attendees at the Jacksonville Business Professionals AI + the Human Edge event to sign up for the Dev Days, I knew I wanted to be there. I showed up at The Link, grabbed a slice of pizza, and joined an audience made up of developers, information architects, IT executives, and software engineers.
Vladimir Gofaizen, Director of IT Engineering at WineShipping, kicked off the event by focusing on data infrastructure, streamlining warehouse information, and automating query correction. Ryan Nugent, Software Engineer II at NLP Logix, encouraged attendees to enhance AI agents with specialized, modular skills rather than relying solely on prompting. Parind Shah, VP at Bank of America, focused on boosting productivity with GitHub, MCPs, and effective agentic workflows.
The final session featured Michael Privat, CDO at Availity, David Provan, VP of Digital Architecture at the PGA TOUR, Philip O'Donnell, Principal at Eloquent Analytics, and Nathan Enright, Director of Solution Architecture at NLP Logix. DJ Price, CRO at NLP Logix, moderated the discussion of AI-assisted development and real-world use cases.
While the highly technical content was naturally geared toward developers, it offered a valuable learning curve for tech enthusiasts without an engineering background. Though the deep dives into Large Language Models (LLMs), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and AWS Bedrock orchestration were challenging to follow at times, learning these acronyms and AI-enabled software development life cycle (SDLC) processes sparked ideas that attendees could bring back to their own tech teams.
GitHub Copilot Dev Day was a developer-friendly event with AI upskilling for tech enthusiasts and professionals. NLP Logix and GitHub gave attendees access to education and insights with no cost for tickets.
To the Tech Coast Conference and Beyond
The Tech Coast Conference is another specialized event designed to broaden tech knowledge and immerse attendees in the local professional technology community.
The Jacksonville IT Council (JITC), part of the JAX Chamber, has hosted this annual conference since 2013. The 2025 Tech Coast Conference (TCC), held at the Adam W. Herbert University Center at UNF, featured 25 speakers and drew more than 1,000 attendees.
The session on "Phishing 3.0: Battling AI-Driven Impersonation and Fraud," from CTO Brantley Pearce and Paul Gibbs, Senior Director of Managed IT Services — both from RJ Young — was standing-room only. Pearce and Gibbs discussed the preventative measures organizations must take against fraud and the inevitable challenges of recovery following a cybersecurity incident. Other sessions also focused on recovery strategies, offering what at times felt like a post-Terminator perspective of the future of cybersecurity.
The CIO panel included Mike Webb from the Jacksonville Jaguars, along with Erika Graziuso, Michael Bouchet, and Brian Verkamp. The Women in Tech panel featured Taryn Swietek from Google, Mikey Steward from VyStar Credit Union, and Mary Ann Coburn from Crowley, among others.
Nicolas Calcutti's "vibe coding" breakout session was cool, enigmatic, and at times highly technical. Elizabeth Maxwell's session offered practical CRM insights that extended beyond Salesforce users. In total, the conference featured 22 sessions across 12 tracks — topics ranging from automation and cybersecurity to blockchain, data governance, AI contracts, Edge ML, passkeys, and emerging technologies.
On August 27th, 2026, the 13th Annual Business and Technology Tech Coast Conference will take place at the Prime F. Osborn III Convention Center. The event outgrew its previous location in 2025, with overcrowded hallways, packed keynote sessions, and rows of sponsor booths — a good problem to have.
Make sure to follow the Jax Business Calendar and check back soon for an update on the 2026 TCC conference. The JITC has yet to release this year's keynote lineup. So, barring any robot-led elimination of humankind, I plan to be in attendance. But before you register for the next Tech Coast Conference, take a moment to look up at the stars and think about space.
Meanwhile, in a Galaxy on Shad Road
Star Catcher Industries, Inc. is a local company building a space-based power grid intended to accelerate orbital infrastructure development. The company recently celebrated a $65M Series A funding milestone. The investment, led by B Capital and co-led by Shield Capital and Cerberus Ventures, along with a successful on-orbit subsystem demonstration, are strong indicators that Star Catcher may be positioned to drive scalable deployment.
This isn't Co-founder Andrew Rush's first space venture. In a previous role at Made in Space, he helped develop hardware capable of operating in space by accounting for the absence of gravity and natural convection, enabling 3D printing in orbit. Since astronauts cannot exactly place an Amazon order for rocket delivery (yet), breaking or losing items during a mission can be incapacitating. These printers even allowed astronauts on the International Space Station to manufacture tools, including a ratchet, on demand.
As energy demands grow on earth and in orbit, so does the need for systems capable of powering space operations. According to Star Catcher, both national security and commercial missions stand to benefit from this new infrastructure.
"Every major application driving the space economy — connectivity, computing, security, sensing — is power-limited today. Star Catcher is lifting that ceiling, making it possible to build in orbit at the scale the next century of life on Earth will demand."
— Andrew Rush, Co-Founder, Star Catcher Industries
What better represents entrepreneurial growth than free, local, developer-focused AI education, a space-based power grid, and more than a decade of booming tech conferences? Together, these developments highlight North Florida's growing momentum in technology and innovation.
Life in Jacksonville moves fast. Stop and look around every once in a while, so you do not miss either the next space-based innovation or breakthrough in automating shipping workflows.
