Tech-based economy outlined

BYLINE: Jim Stafford, The Daily Oklahoman

Nov. 3--The top challenges in building a technology-based economy revolve around people and money, the chief executive officer of the State Science and Technology Institute said Thursday at the group's annual conference here.

There isn't enough of either, apparently.

In a presentation that closed the institute's annual conference at the Cox Convention Center, Dan Berglund outlined the most common obstacles to building a tech-based economy in the United States.

Berglund revealed a survey of about 350 institute members -- almost all of whom are officers in state economic development agencies, non profit organizations or chambers of commerce -- show shared their biggest frustrations in tech-based economic development.

Thirty percent of the conference participants identified a lack of experienced management talent and/or entrepreneurs as the top challenge to their efforts to build the tech-based economy. Another 24 percent said it was a lack of capital that start-up companies need to sustain them early on.

Both are issues that Oklahoma's contingent of tech-based economic developers have often raised in their quest. But Oklahoma has taken steps to deal with each through initiatives of the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology and i2E, which manages several programs for OCAST.

In a 40-minute presentation, Berglund contrasted the perception of technology by the members of the institute and scientific community with the public in general. He showed statistics that revealed attitudes toward education, broadband deployment, embryonic stem cell research, nanotechnology, alternative energy, and an area he called "scientific literacy."

As participants filtered out of the Cox Convention Center at the conference's conclusion, Berglund said Oklahoma had scored a major image coup with the institute's membership.

"Oklahoma did great," Berglund said. "They were a wonderful host. Part of the reason we put this (meeting) in Oklahoma City, we knew that Oklahoma had a good story to tell and people aren't as award of it as they should be."

Added Sheri Stickley, an Edmond resident and a vice president with the State Science and Technology Institute, the reaction to the host city by conference participants from 45 states and three foreign countries was "very, very encouraging."

"All the comments I've heard have been great," she said.

The 2007 conference will be held in Baltimore.

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