The Economic Development Generating Excellence policy board announced six recipients will receive funding from the inaugural EDGE Innovative Ideas Program.

IIP is a new EDGE program designed to support highly innovative, early-stage ideas for one year at a maximum level of $25,000. IIP awards are intended to help move an idea from its “theoretical” stage of development into something more tangible and viable.

Luis Gomez and Jose Gamboa of Multiphase Systems Integration LLC in Tulsa are one of the recipients for their multiphase compact boosting system. The innovation represents a prototype that provides sufficient pressure in the reservoirs and pipelines of marginal oil wells. The intention is to make the low-producing wells economically feasible to continue producing oil.

“One of the key tenets of the Oklahoma Innovation & Technology Plan is to create an environment in our state that fosters the research necessary to produce new technologies … an environment that proactively encourages Oklahoma-based companies to be innovative,” said Paul Risser, executive director of the EDGE policy board. “The Innovative Ideas Program is intended to do this. This is the first program of its type in the state, and we’re very excited about its potential to help expand business and create jobs in Oklahoma.”

Forty-eight applications and 110 ideas were submitted for the 2010 IIP awards. Initially, the EDGE board set a maximum of five $25,000 IIP grants for a total allocation of $125,000. But because the ideas were so outstanding, Risser said, the board elected to fund one additional project.

Established by Gov. Brad Henry in 2004, EDGE’s mission is to bolster Oklahoma’s long-term economic growth by investing the earnings from the EDGE endowment in the state’s knowledge infrastructure.