As Tulsa Tech Week approaches, Native entrepreneurs bring innovation, access to communities

(TULSA, Okla.) As Tulsa entrepreneurs and tech companies gear up for Tulsa’s second annual Tech Week from September 21-26, two Native-led companies are working hard to find solutions in health and internet technologies to address community needs. 

Although Native Americans remain significantly underrepresented in STEM and technology entrepreneurship, P.A.R.T.N.E.R BioResearch and Dailey Technologies are working to lessen disparities and improve access for all Tulsans.

Native tech entrepreneurs seek solutions, equity

Kelsey Powell (Muscogee) founded P.A.R.T.N.E.R BioResearch to improve Indigenous health outcomes. 

“I was a director in clinical research, and my daughter was diagnosed with Addison’s disease,” Powell said. “I noticed there was no Native American patients in clinical research. She almost passed away. She’s great now, but during this time we found out that there was a clinical trial an hour down the road from us that we were never told about.”

Powell wants to be sure the same thing doesn’t happen to more Native families.

P.A.R.T.N.E.R BioResearch works with tribal health departments to connect patients with clinical trials. In addition, it is providing vital data about health conditions and outcomes in Native communities. 

“It tracks disease prevalence so they can actually see what is affecting their population as a community,” said Powell. 

This information is vital for tribal health organizations to determine what medications, therapies, or other treatments they need to make available to their patients. 

Powell also said part of her mission is to ensure Native Americans are included in more health research. Native people currently represent less than 1% of the study populations in drug research and clinical trials, despite comprising nearly 3% of the U.S. population.

Powell pointed to Ozempic as one example of the impacts of this disparity. 

“It’s the number one prescribed medication in tribal healthcare today,” said Powell. “Out of 4,087 patients and seven pivotal trials, not one Native American was tested.”

Publicly reported clinical trial data for semaglutide (the generic name for Ozempic and Wegovy), as well as reported data for many other drugs, do not identify Native people as a separate racial category. In some trial data, participants who did not identify with categories such as white, Black, Asian, or Hispanic were grouped as “Other”, which may have included Native American participants.

That lack of clear Native representation in clinical research can make it difficult to determine whether medications and treatments have similar outcomes across different populations.

Providing tribal IT solutions

Healthcare is not the only avenue for Indigenous innovation in Tulsa. Amos Dailey, a software developer and IT expert, used his passion for technology to start Dailey Technologies with his wife Ashley in 2020. 

As a member of the Osage Nation, Dailey saw a need for Native Americans to provide technology solutions for tribal governments and the communities they serve. 

Dailey said his company replaced a remote company that had been working with the Pawnee Nation. 

He says it’s important for Native Americans to get involved in technology because not only is there opportunity, it’s also important that these companies understand and respect Native American culture and tribes. 

“I love working with tribes,” Dailey said. “They all have their own special uniqueness about them. Not one tribe that I’ve ever worked with is the same. I know Osages and Pawnees alike don’t like being told what to do or how to do it; they like to come to that solution on their own.”

A need for more funding, Native entrepreneurs in tech

Dailey encouraged other Native Americans with technology expertise to consider areas where Native technology expertise is lacking, especially in rural and tribal communities. 

“We’re in rural America, rural Oklahoma,” said Dailey. “For the Osage, they’re an hour from Tulsa, but it’s still hard for remote technicians to drive there and fix their computers. Look to your local communities and see if they need technology help. You could be that local help that makes that change. And as you grow and as you get better and as you build your tools, you’ll be able to help more, help in other locations.”

Powell said there is not only a need for Native people in technology fields, but also a need for more funding to help people get started. 

“I’ve carried my company myself with very little funding,” Powell said. “We’ve got it coming in now, but it was a hard journey to get here.” 

Increasing national attention on Tulsa

Tulsa’s tech sector has received increased national attention following the city’s 2024 designation as a Tech Hub by the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA). That nod came with a $51 million investment in grant funding to Tulsa Innovation Labs and their initiative, Tulsa Hub for Equitable and Trustworthy Autonomy (THETA).

TIL received another $49 million from philanthropic partners to match the grant, bringing the total funding to $100 million. 

Projects connected to the Tulsa Tech Hub include Greenwood AI Center of Excellence (G-ACE), the Osage Nation Skyway Range, the Pathways to Autonomy Program operated by the Opp Project and Partner Tulsa, and Tulsa Tech’s Advanced Air Mobility Certificate. 

Tai Nehisi is a technology entrepreneur and founder of Organizely, an AI business service software. She said the lack of public updates about the Tech Hub’s progress, community-wide engagement and public celebration surrounding the investment encouraged her to launch Tulsa Tech Week in 2025.

Nehisi moved to Tulsa in 2023 as part of Tulsa Remote and said she became increasingly interested in how the significant investment in Tulsa’s tech sector would reach the broader community.

To learn how the money would be spent, Nehisi said she regularly checked THETA’s website but found little information about the initiative’s progress or how the investment was being implemented. She said the website was later taken down in 2025 after the Trump administration took office.

“I was like, okay, they won the grant,” Nehisi said. “I was waiting for some community-wide celebration. One hundred million dollars came into the community, and if you go out on the street and asked the everyday Tulsan in any part of the city, they have no idea. Why is that?”

Tech Week launches in Tulsa

Nehisi decided Tulsa needed to celebrate its technology capabilities and achievements. In 2025, she launched Tech Week in Tulsa, an event that also happens in many other cities.

Tech Week is a series of free public events intended to make the region’s tech industry more visible and accessible to residents. Participating organizations host individual events at locations of their choosing throughout Tulsa and the surrounding metro area, as well as online. Attendees can choose the events that best fit their interests and schedules.

Nehisi hopes this year’s event will showcase Tulsa’s innovation.

“The basic tenet of this celebration is that technology is for everyone,” said Nehisi. “Tulsa is at the forefront of cybersecurity, at the forefront of oil and gas technology. We have one of the largest drone parks in the nation. There’s a lot of technology that’s happening here, but it’s not readily accessible or readily distributed to its people.”

Crosswinds reached out to Tulsa Innovation Labs regarding their process for selecting projects and collaborators. They responded with the following statement: 

In 2024, TIL and their partners were awarded $51M in federal funding by the EDA and earned Tulsa the designation as one of our nation’s Tech Hubs, specific to technologies critical to national security and U.S. economic competitiveness.

As part of the grant process, TIL applied and secured these federal awards alongside a coalition of Tulsans spanning industries, expertise and backgrounds. Since funds were awarded, TIL and the coalitions of regional partners have been hard at work executing projects across the region. 

The nature of these federal grants requires that allocation and implementation of funds and projects are pre-determined before an organization applies. These details help to determine if an organization will receive a grant and cannot be altered once the grant has been awarded.

Nehisi said she looks forward to partnering with more Native entrepreneurs for future Tech Weeks, in both Tulsa and Oklahoma City.

Those interested in getting involved in this year’s Tulsa Tech Week can sign up to attend, volunteer, speak, present or host an event through the Tulsa Tech Week website.