The Tulsa Charity Flight Night will be on September 18, 2014. This year the Tulsa Regional STEM Alliance will be a beneficiary, along with the Fab Lab Tulsa.

The Siegfried family’s long-running “Fight Night” tradition is getting a major shakeup, one that may fit the clan’s aviation leanings better. In September, the annual “Fight Night” will become “Flight Night,” with an ‘L,’ and is moving from the ring to the air. Instead of prizefighting, the Sept. 18 fundraising and flight-themed event will feature an air show, entertainment and a live auction.

For 21 years Fight Night brought in the biggest names in the pugilism, such as Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier and Evander Holyfield. But the family wants to put more emphasis on education, and their NORDAM company’s emphasis on supporting so-called STEM areas — science, technology, engineering and math.

“This collaboration will be a game-changer in STEM education in the Tulsa region,” said Bailey J. Siegfried., vice president of global marketing at NORDAM in a statement. “The funds generated from Tulsa Charity Flight Night will inspire creativity, spark excitement and harness the inspiration, resources and experience of STEM stakeholder, ultimately broadening horizons for children across northeastern Oklahoma.”

With funds raised from the event, the family hopes to fund a one-day STEM event in Tulsa for students, a Quadcopter challenge where students compete against each other designing flying machines, as well as a mobile “fab lab” to engage students in emerging technologies.

“Trained specialists in STEM disciplines are critical to many, if not all, industries in our city, state and nation to properly compete globally and create technology to propel us into the future,” said NORDAM CEO Meredith Siegfried.

Along with NORDAM, the Muscogee Creek Nation and Asphalt Fuel Supply are title sponsors of the event. The Flight Night group is still working on getting clearance […]

The National Science Foundation awarded a grant in September of 2013 to the OneOklahoma Friction Free Network (OFFN) to deploy a high speed research network between the supercomputing centers in the state of Oklahoma.

The OneOklahoma Friction Free Network (OFFN) is a collaboration among four Oklahoma institutions that have significant High Performance Computing resources available for academic research: the University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University, the Tandy Supercomputing Center of the Oklahoma Innovation Institute, and Langston University, Oklahoma’s only Historically Black University, along with OneNet, Oklahoma’s education, research and government information and telecommunications network.

Triggered by research needs in high energy physics, numerical weather prediction, bioinformatics and weather radar, but available for researchers across all Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines statewide, OFFN serves as a crucial component of the OneOklahoma Cyberinfrastructure Initiative (OneOCII), which provides resources and services to researchers and educators across the state, and which has so far served almost 100 institutions and organizations, approximately half of them academic.

For more information on the grant, please visit the National Science Foundation Website.

Video by the Oklahoma Department of Commerce.

“Oklahoma has transformed the heartland into a global crossroads. Our businesses are booming and we’re a leader in everything from unconventional energy to unmanned aerial vehicles.”

Watch OKNOW on Vimeo.

The call for Makers is now open!
The 2014 Tulsa Mini Maker Faire will be held on Saturday, August 30, 2014 from 10:0o am to 6:00 pm. The event will be held in Central Park Hall at Expo Square.

This community-based event is focused on fun and engaging education that creates connections within the community. Makers from all over the region are called to share their work with others. The unique goal of this event is to gather artists, engineers, scientists, hobbyists, crafters, students and educators together to share ideas that we often don’t encounter every day.

Please visit the Tulsa Mini Maker Faire website for Maker Guideline, attendee information and more!

Scott Meacham, president and CEO of i2E Inc., a nonprofit corporation that mentors many of the state’s technology-based startup companies, wrote a column for the May 6th, 2014, edition of The Oklahoman.

In the column he discusses the Tandy Supercomputing Center and OII’s recent Innovator of the Year honor:

Over the last three years, the Oklahoma Innovation Institute has worked to build a collaborative infrastructure in the Tulsa region, including a Tulsa community supercomputer.

That effort recently earned the Oklahoma Innovation Institute recognition as an Oklahoma Innovator of the Year, as well as proving to a lot of people that the Tulsa community could think collaboratively.
He also introduces the new Tulsa Regional STEM Alliance:
Under the Innovation Institute umbrella, the Tulsa Regional STEM Alliance launched in January.

This endeavor came about through an interest in connecting Tulsa’s STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) resources in a collaborative model to produce more STEM education opportunities for the area’s young people, from pre-K through graduation.
Read the full column.

On Tuesday, April 22nd, the Tulsa Business and Legal News (formerly the Tulsa Business Journal) at its annual award dinner named OII’s George Louthan, computer scientist and director of the Tandy Supercomputing Center, to its 2014 class of the Tulsa 40.

According to TB&LN: The Tulsa Business & Legal News recognizes the best and brightest of Tulsa’s up and coming business and community leaders as part of its class of The Tulsa 40.  Nominated by their peers, TB&LN profiles 40 individuals who have distinguished themselves in the business community and whom we expect to be among the next generation of movers and shakers.

For a full list of awardees and more information, see the Tulsa Business and Legal News article “2014 Tulsa 40 Honorees.”

On Wednesday, April 23rd, The Journal Record announced at its annual awards luncheon that the Oklahoma Innovation Institute, and its program the Tandy Supercomputing Center, has been selected as the overall 2014 Innovator of the Year.

Accepting the award, OII Executive Director David Greer said “The concept of collaboration has really taken hold not only in Tulsa, but Oklahoma in general. By sharing resources in models like the Tandy Community Supercomputer, we can elevate everyone.”

“High-performance computing increases the efficiency of research while decreasing the time it takes to transition products to market. The result is a competitive advantage in the development of new technologies and commercially viable products,” said George Louthan, Director of the Tandy Supercomputing Center. “We believe that the Tandy Community Supercomputer, nicknamed Tandy, is the nation’s first truly community supercomputer.”

More information and a full story is available at The Journal Record’s story, “Oklahoma Innovation Institute Takes Top Prize.”