This Tech Founder Is Launching Tulsa Tech Week To Build Wealth For Black Communities In Oklahoma – peopleofcolorintech

Tariqua “Tai” Nehisi, founder of Organizely, an AI-powered future workplace platform, is set to launch Tulsa Tech Week on Sept. 22. After launching her startup in 2021, Nehisi found herself in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for a program called Tulsa Remote in the following year.

“I made a decision to move here at least for the year and see what Tulsa looked like. And in that moving here, I came at a time when there was a really great concerted effort to support the rebuilding of Black Wall Street through a technical lens with Black- and brown-focused tech companies. And I got into an accelerator to accelerate my business, and that’s how everything really started,” Nehisi said in an interview with AFROTECH™.

The potential for wealth building in Tulsa

When Nehisi moved to Tulsa, she saw the potential for wealth-building opportunities and abundance in local talent, but also saw the unequal distribution of access and opportunity.

Nehisi also noted that the Biden Administration allocated $51 million to the city in 2024 through the US Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA). The investment was given to the Tulsa Hub for Equitable & Trustworthy Autonomy, which was recognized as one of the designated tech hubs in the nation under the Tech Hubs Program.

“The Tulsa philanthropic community here matched that $51 million by the Biden administration with $49 million to take it to $100 million…. But there’s no singular place or anywhere around this city that lets you know that there’s $100 million here to support the building out of a tech hub or that there’s any technology here, though it is bursting with it. So I waited and I waited, and then I decided ‘I’ll do it myself,’” she said..

Tulsa Tech Week

The week-long event features various activations designed to make discovering and connecting with Tulsa’s tech ecosystem easier. Some sessions include: “Free coworking,” “How to Use AI to get Alternative Capital,” “Access by Design: Building for Everyone,” and From Pitch to Portfolio: Banking & Fundraising with SVB (Silicon Valley Bank).”

Tulsa Tech Week has at least 50 partners, which include Langston University, the state’s only Historically Black College or University (HBCU), according to Nehisi. This partnership will highlight healthcare majors on campus and “the voices of Black people in Tulsa from the collegiate perspective,” she added.

Tulsa Tech Week will take place Sept. 22-27. You can register for the event on the website.

Image: Shoppe Black

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