Black Tech Street

National Cyber Director Coker celebrated #Juneteenth in Tulsa, OK visiting with Black Tech Street to highlight opportunities to join the cyber workforce especially for historically underrepresented groups. Building on the legacy of Black Wall Street and the growing spirit of innovation in Tulsa, which was designed a Tech Hub last October, he spoke alongside Mayor G.T. Bynum of the City of Tulsa and Tyrance Billingsley II at an event in the historic Greenwood District, Director Coker said, “Today, I’ll have the opportunity to visit the site of Black Wall Street, a space where African Americans – for many generations following the Civil War – thrived. More than 100 years after their work began to create not only a self-sustaining business district, but economic opportunity and generational wealth, we stand here on their shoulders. And we are here again, looking to innovation. And to hope. Their fearless example is what we remember and what we allow to inspire us today.” Earlier in the day, Director Coker visited with leaders from The University of Tulsa and toured their National Computer Forensics Institute which has been operated by the U.S. Secret Service since 2008, meeting with students and faculty. https://lnkd.in/eAh3U36b

Welcome to #THETAThursday where we’re highlighting #TechHubTulsa. Last month, we submitted our Phase 2 application for the #EDATechHub program to fund the Tulsa Hub for Equitable and Trustworthy Autonomy (#THETA). With #TechHubs funding, in 10 years Tulsa will be the global capital for the development, testing and manufacturing of #autonomoussystems (e.g., #drones, #autonomousvehicles, #robots with cross-industry applications). Here's a little info about the seven component projects outlined in our application. These projects fill gaps in our region's economy, provide new pathways to good jobs for our neighbors and position Tulsa to become THE place to test, manufacture and deploy these technologies. 1. A workforce pipeline including K12 to adult upskilling/reskilling centered on STEM and manufacturing job placement and talent retention. 2. A venture studio to spur innovation, create new companies and increase capacity of small- and medium-sized businesses. 3. A manufacturing center that provides supporting infrastructure (facilities, equipment, services) to allow manufacturers to expand operations and improve Oklahoma’s supply chain. 4. A testing program to increase the capacity, quality and commercial uptake of demonstration/testing for autonomous systems technologies resulting in increased company attraction and business activity. 5. A combined set of initiatives and coordinating mechanism to drive advances in autonomous systems technology development and commercialization and helping universities attract the best faculty. 6. An artificial intelligence hub that provides companies, residents and startups with access to the necessary infrastructure needed to leverage and advance the development of AI. 7. Oversight and sustainability to drive our Tech Hubs strategy and ensure execution of other six projects and their individual initiatives. A coalition of more than 70 organizations stands behind THETA and is committed to the development of these projects. With the implementation funding from the Tech Hubs program and other local commitments, Tulsa’s innovation economy stands to bring in upwards of $120 million in the next five years, meaning close to 60,000 new good jobs for our region. Visit techhubtulsa.com to learn more and come back next week for #THETAThursday! #TechHubTulsa #EDATechHub #TechHubs #autonomoussystems #aam #cybersecurity #ai #robotics #advancedmanufacturing #commercialization #uas #autonomoustechnologies, Black Tech Street, Cherokee Nation Businesses, L3 Technologies, Madison Strategies Group, NORDAM, Oklahoma State University, Osage, LLC, PartnerTulsa, Radius Capital Ventures, TEDC, The University of Tulsa, Tulsa Community College

LAST DAY TO APPLY! ACT House was and continues to be a truly valuable program for Kredit Academy. After being selected to Cohort 5 our team was able to gain actionable feedback on how to grow our business while also seeing the beauty of Tulsa firsthand. For any founders looking on how to effectively get their products to market and just learn a lot about overall team building this is a great program. Dominick J. Ard'is, I, Malachi Blankenship and co are really doing great work. Check it out... https://act.house/

Last week, over 100 black and allied community members gathered to experience how AI could be leveraged to enhance their work and lives. Hack the Future Greenwood saw residents of historic Greenwood explore and demonstrate the power of LLM in the areas of entrepreneurship, creative expression, education and learning, spirituality and religious engagement, economic and community development and social and criminal justice via use-case based challenges designed by Black Tech Street and community stakeholders. Our goal was to pilot a model for exposing and educating black and marginalized communities to the potential of AI in a way that catalyzes adoption and ecosystem creation. We could not be more satisfied with the results. From people like Ebony Jones and Pamela Cook who said the experience opened their eyes to ways they could supercharge their businesses, to Krock, who leveraged AI to create a moving rap honoring Greenwood and assist him in building an economic equity plan for Black Tulsans, our community left high on the powers of AI and is conscious of the necessity of Black people to ride the coming wave. The Mckinsey Institute for Black Economic Mobility (The Impact of Generative AI on Black Communities) projects that annual global wealth creation from Gen AI will reach about $7 trillion per year. With Black Americans capturing only 38 cents of every dollar of new household wealth, continuation of this trend would mean that new wealth created by Gen AI could increase the wealth gap between Black and White households by $43 billion annually. AI will power the fourth industrial revolution, and this wave will either lift black people to never-before-seen socioeconomic heights, or exacerbate inequities to near irreparable levels. AI will be the medium of the new world. Black people have to overindex in AI, and who better to build the blueprint for how to do that than historic Black Wall Street. I would like to thank the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and Senior Policy Advisor on AI Olivia Zhu for keynoting our event, showing the Greenwood community how serious we are about leading on AI. I want to thank our partners, SeedAI via Austin Carson and The Wilson Center via Kellee Wicker. A special thank you to Austin Carson and SeedAI for being the kind of allies we need in this work. Thank you for partnering with our organization to support us in building power via AI! I would like to thank Allen Collins and Denzel Wilson, I would like to thank our panelists, Sean Alexander, Kelsey Davis Ashli Sims and Jaslyn Marcal Ferguson , and our event sponsors Microsoft, Amazon George Kaiser Family Foundation, and Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies. We are excited to lead the way alongside our community and begin building an AI Center of Excellence in historic Greenwood that can serve as a model for black communities across the country! 📸 Mike Creef #HacktheFutureGreenwood #BlackTechStreet #SeedAI