The Office of Management and Enterprise Services announce new technology initiative

-- NEWS RELEASE --

For Immediate Release

PRESTON L. DOERFLINGER
Secretary
Finance, Administration
and Information Technology

MARY FALLIN
Governor

Sept. 21, 2017

Today Gov. Mary Fallin, along with State Chief Information Officer Bo Reese and members of the Oklahoma tech community, launched Innovate Oklahoma, a new technology initiative between the Office of Management and Enterprise Services and the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology.

The initiative will allow custom technology applications to be developed to directly meet the needs of the state departments and agencies, leading to innovation and efficiency in government. 

"Innovate Oklahoma is an exciting initiative to grow Oklahoma's tech industry and help launch new startup companies," said Governor Fallin.

"Oklahoma is on it's way to becoming the silicon prarie of the Heartland, she said. "This initiative is a partnership between state entities and the private sector to bring new, innovative ideas that promote efficiency and save money in state government operations."  

The Innovate Oklahoma website gives citizens the opportunity to submit a challenge or problem they would like to have solved with an application solution. From there, the submission becomes a foundation block to launch a community-led, collaborative environment that uses technology to improve Oklahoma's government services. 

After launching the site, state CIO Bo Reese announced the first contract. "We are excited to announce that the Innovate Oklahoma project has already made progress. Tapzot, LLC has been formed by several local technologists and entrepreneurs to meet the challenge of building the software behind our innovation portal at innovate.ok.gov.  

“OMES and OCAST have worked closely with the Tapzot team and are proud to announce today that they have become the first of what we all hope are many amazing startup communes born out of the Innovate Oklahoma initiative."

Innovate Oklahoma, innovate.ok.gov, is the first of its kind in the nation and OMES is proud to be breaking new ground and finding solutions to the challenges state agencies face.


Media Contact

Shelley Zumwalt
Director of Public Affairs
(405) 535-5198 | shelley.zumwalt@omes.ok.gov


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About the Office of Management and Enterprise Services

The Office of Management and Enterprise Services provides financial, property, purchasing, human resources and information technology services to all state agencies, and assists the Governor’s Office on budgetary policy matters. Our mission: Supporting our partners through unified business services. For more information, visit OMES.OK.gov.