About 400 women are expected in Tulsa to attend OK-WISE, a conference that highlights the scientific, economic and societal impacts being made by women in Oklahoma.
The conference is spearheaded by the Oklahoma Catalyst team at the Tom Love Innovation Hub that is located on the University of Oklahoma Research Campus.
Anita Ly, a Small Business Graduate Assistant at OU, is the conference coordinator.
“We want to showcase all the amazing work that women in the state of Oklahoma are doing,” she said. “There are always women doing amazing work, but those stories aren’t always being told. So this is an excellent platform for those women to tell their stories, to share their journeys, and the challenges that they faced and how they overcame them.”
Tom Wavering, executive director of the Tom Love Innovation Hub, said the idea for the conference came from a discussion with OU’s Association for Women in Science.
“There’s a lot of focus on K-12 for STEM, on girls and young women to get them into that field,” he said. “But once they get into college, magically all those problems (supposedly) go away. And that’s not really the case.”
From these discussions, the idea of a conference targeting college students, advanced students and professionals to give women in STEM and entrepreneurship more opportunities for connection, networking and learning.
“I like the idea of marrying science with business,” Ly said. “If you want to start a pharmaceutical company like I would in the future, having the knowledge of both the business and science side of things helps a lot.”
The conference also provides opportunities for those launching high-tech businesses to learn about the Small Business Administration's Small Business Innovation and Research program: a $2.5 billion funding opportunity for small businesses to do technology-focused research and development.
OK-WISE will be held from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 23, at the Hyatt Regency Downtown Tulsa, 100 East 2nd Street., Tulsa.