Crowdsourced Selection

One of the hardest aspects of supporting entrepreneurs is vetting their ideas and selecting the most promising, but we could decide to let the open market help with that.  For example, we could offer some public/private venture money as matching funds for those who get their ideas funded by Kickstarter or such.  Tulsa philanthropists or state funds could, perhaps, fund incubator space or some partial salary-matching for anybody with a Kickstarter in a loosely defined area that matches our innovation criteria. 

We could cast a broader net, and provide Raspberry Pi computers, IoT toolkits, and/or free Amazon AWS access for high-school students who successfully complete Internet of Things (IoT) bootcamps, to instill interest and grow skills in such technologies. 


Recently, Coding Dojo opened in Tulsa, with the goal of teaching interested students to be reasonably proficient coders in 18 months or so.  It’s like having a tech school for software….and interesting notion.  Honestly, I’m not completely convinced that such bootcamps will provide the depth and breadth of skills that a college degree would, but there are a lot of implement tasks that fairly green but technically competent coders could handle.

Local groups, like TulsaWebDevs and Techlahoma, already have quite capable tech programs in place, and are growing in scope and influence.  Perhaps such groups could help provide networking connections between local traditional educational institutions, graduates of Coding Dojo, entrepreneur incubators, investors and would-be inventors, and local companies.  The “gig economy” is popular with Millennial techies, and facilitating such engagements could be a win for individuals and companies alike.

Speaking of networking, high-speed Internet is table-stakes for a high-tech community, and improving network performance for all of Tulsa, or at least targeted enterprise zones, should be part of the goal.  I think this is one of those areas where we as a community should simply state our expectations and demand that our local provides like Cox or BTC rise to the occasion to yield to Google for their high-speed fiber or wireless.  Sure, it’ll be expensive, but it’s shared infrastructure that will pay back both in improved productivity and improved attractiveness for well-connected techies. 

Better still, free downtown networking for individuals and IoT devices would help the whole area become a spring-board for connected devices.  Free access doesn’t have to be fast for “things”; it just needs to be ubiquitous in order for IoT device innovation to occur.  It should be pretty fast for individuals, though – for techies a good Internet connection is a highly desirable asset, and not just a luxury but a valuable tool.