Call us: 1.405.235.2305
info@i2E.org
  • Events
  • News
  • Resources
  • Library
  • Love’s Cup
i2Ei2Ei2Ei2E
  • About
  • Entrepreneurship
    • Venture Advisory Services
    • Love’s Entrepreneur’s Cup
  • e3
  • Concept Fund
  • iMCI
  • Portfolio
  • Contact

Innovation is key to economic development

    Home News Innovation is key to economic development
    NextPrevious

    Innovation is key to economic development

    By sarah | News | 0 comment | 2 April, 2019 | 0

    By Scott Meacham
    Copyright © 2019, The Oklahoman

    Innovate. Innovate. Innovate. That’s the common theme in today’s economy. Innovation stimulates entrepreneurship. Successful entrepreneurship creates net new jobs.

    Driving innovation through collaboration to create jobs is the entire reason for being of the public-private consortium of the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology (OCAST), the Oklahoma Manufacturing Alliance (OMA), the Oklahoma State University New Product Development Center (NPDC) and i2E.

    Through our four-way strategic partnership, the Oklahoma Innovation Model, which has been more than 20 years in the making and is nationally acknowledged as best in class, kick-started and continues to drive the innovation economy here, complementing but never diminishing Oklahoma’s long-standing reliance on energy, agriculture, and aerospace.

    “We help create high-paying jobs, seed ideas and start and support companies across multiple sectors. These are things that we do every day — things that result in more state and local tax revenues from wages and sales,” said C. Michael Carolina, OCAST Executive Director. “These taxes help to support our schools, build or improve roads and bridges, and support the core functions of government.”

    Over the past 20 years, i2E client companies have been responsible for 3,283 new jobs paying wages that average 73 percent higher than the average wage in Oklahoma.

    These young companies pay corporate taxes, invent products and services that draw revenue into Oklahoma from other countries and states, create high-paying jobs and offer exciting career opportunities. They help encourage the outstanding graduates of Oklahoma colleges and universities to put roots here, buy homes and cars, raise families and support our public schools.

    The more successful the new companies are in top-line revenue, bottom-line profitability and gross margins, the more taxes paid and the more potential dollars that the state can plow back into research and development, thus perpetuating the cycle of innovation and job creation.

    In his State of the State address, Gov. Kevin Stitt set forth a vision of making Oklahoma a Top 10 State based on reimagined possibilities and renewed accountability. He emphasized leadership, measurable goals and metrics, and a sense of individual responsibility.

    Gov. Stitt is expressing the 2019 version of the legislative vision that created OCAST in 1987, authorized the seed capital fund (TBFP Fund) in 1988 and has continued to invest in the Oklahoma Model of innovation. Last year, for every $1 the state appropriated to OCAST for science and technology, the state realized a return of $34.

    OCAST is Oklahoma’s only agency with the sole focus of technology-based economic development. In 2018, 145 research applications received by OCAST were deemed “qualified-for-funding” by outside peer review and rigorous vetting. Because of funding cuts, OCAST was able to fund only 74 of the 145 approved projects.

    That means 71 approved research projects went unfunded due to budget constraints. Given OCAST’s historical return on investment this translates to significant lost opportunity in jobs, industry diversification and tax revenue to our state.

    Becoming a Top Ten state is a worthy and achievable goal for this state. To be that competitive on a national and global scale we must reimagine. We must accelerate innovation. That means investing strategically and investing more in the things that have proven to work.

    Scott Meacham is president and CEO of i2E Inc., a nonprofit corporation that mentors many of the state’s technology-based startup companies. i2E receives state appropriations from the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology. Contact Meacham at i2E_Comments@i2E.org

    Michael Carolina, New Product Development Center, OCAST, Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology, Oklahoma Innovation Model, Oklahoma Manufacturing Alliance, Scott Meacham

    Related Posts

    • ‘Oklahoma!’ a unique model for innovation

      By sarah | Comments are Closed

      By Scott Meacham In 1943, when the musical Oklahoma opened on Broadway, our state had only been a state for 36 years. Oklahoma not only gave us the best state song in the entire country,Read more

    • State embraces collaborative culture with Oklahoma Innovation Model

      By sarah | Comments are Closed

      By Scott Meacham We are in difficult times — and when times are difficult, individuals, business, and even entire states have to do things differently. Think back to what was happening in Oklahoma in theRead more

    • Government investment in scientific research pays off

      By sarah | 0 comment

      By Scott Meacham Copyright © 2018, The Oklahoma Publishing Co. It seems like the conversation everywhere today is about how much or how little government should or should not do. No matter which side youRead more

    • Oklahoma’s investment into economic diversity is reaping rewards

      By admin | 0 comment

      When the Oklahoma Legislature created the Oklahoma Center for Science and Technology (OCAST) nearly three decades ago, they perhaps underestimated how visionary they were. Legislators did realize that to be consistently strong, an economy must be diversified and that science and technology would be the drivers of jobs and wealth into the millennium.

    • STEM funding boosts state’s economy

      By sarah | 0 comment

      By Scott Meacham Copyright © 2019, The Oklahoman Oklahoma is a great place to live. Oklahoma is a great place to work. We are a state that seems ready to seize the moment and leverageRead more

    Leave a Comment

    Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    NextPrevious
    i2E-300dpi-Trans-Light
    • Events
    • News
    • Resources
    • Library
    • Love’s Cup

    Oklahoma City Office

    840 Research Parkway, Suite 250
    OKC, OK 73104
    PHONE 405/235-2305
    Click HERE for printable map with directions.

    Tulsa Office

    618 E. Third Street, Suite 1
    Tulsa, OK 74120
    PHONE 918/582-5592
    Click HERE for printable map with directions.
    Copyright 2021 i2E, Inc. | All Rights Reserved
    • About i2E
    • Services
    • Investments
    • Development
      • Love’s Cup
        • Forms
        • High Growth
        • Small Business
        • Timeline
    • Portfolio 3
    • Contact
    i2E