IMPACT ON TULSA:
BLACK TECH STREET FOUNDER & TCC GRADUATE Tyrance Billingsley is focused on building Black Tech Street, a hub for technological innovation led by the black community and what he calls his vision as the spiritual successor of Black Wall Street. “Building off the foundation laid by the economic pioneers of Black Wall Street, Black Tech Street will be a self-sustaining ecosystem of black talent, businesses, and technological advances that will improve every facet of our economy,” says Billingsley. Black Tech Street has a primary objective to facilitate $1 billion of investments for seeding a black innovation culture in Tulsa. He says this will be done through grants, community development, entrepreneurial development, education, culture and attraction, and workforce development over 10 years. “Tulsa will move closer to the idea of ‘what could have been’ that lives in the minds of all who are heirs to the legacy of the original Greenwood community,” he says. As an African American male who grew up in Tulsa, this is personal to Billingsley. “This is about establishing a new moniker for Tulsa and at the same time creating something that 100 years from now my descendants and sons and daughters of Greenwood can trace back and celebrate as a beginning.” When it came time for the Booker T. Washington High School graduate to go to college, Tyrance made an intentional choice to stay in Tulsa. He attended and graduated from Tulsa Community College. “I saw how Tulsa has a cocktail of different people and opportunities,” he says. “I felt like I could capitalize on the wave of development by staying here and not going to Stillwater or Norman.”
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1996
Tyrance took advantage of opportunities at TCC serving as President of the Student Government Association and becoming the first community college student to be elected Chair of the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education Student Advisory Board. “Being at TCC was extremely helpful and allowed me to mature and grow. I was able to work on my leadership skills and thrive in the environment created to help students succeed.” He understood the value of building relationships at an early age and was interested in the political arena after his experience working on former Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor’s election campaign in 2013. But another passion became more visible. “Entrepreneurship has always been a part of who I was. It isn’t politics or business but rather business and politics. Was I going to build ecosystems and businesses and then run for office or the other way around?” His path moved toward building ecosystems after interning for Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum and an entrepreneurship fellowship with George Kaiser Family Foundation. Now Billingsley works with venture capitalist and partners from across the country to make his vision for Tulsa’s future real. A civic innovator using his relationships to help build Tulsa into the global hub it once was — for all its citizens. “In 1921, a thriving economic hub of innovation and entrepreneurship was stolen from the descendants of all Oklahomans. I believe we can solve our 21st century problems through innovation, collaboration and creativity. I think tech is the oil, and I think Tulsa is the perfect hub.”
Tulsa Junior College changed its name to Tulsa Community College. The College unveiled the new Performing Arts Center for Education and the TCC West Campus opened.
