3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

This week's Houston innovators to know include Yared Akalou of Alcove Group, Serafina Lalany,of Houston Exponential, and Patrick Lewis of Sustainability Ventures Group. Photos courtesy

Editor's note: This week's group of Houston innovators you need to know might be pretty familiar to you, however each of them have a new endeavor they are excited to launch — from an energy investment group with a new name to new virtual platforms to benefit entrepreneurs.

Yared Akalou, founder-and-CEO of Alcove Group

Yared Akalou founded IAmOther50 to capture the brand of the freelancer along with their personality and experience. Photo courtesy of Alcove

Yared Akalou describes himself as a designer-focused entrepreneur. As founder-and-CEO of Alcove Group, his latest venture, IAmOther50, is a platform for creatives and freelancers to connect to work. This innovation he's focused on is in light of the growth in jobs that are freelance and remote.

"I am really on a mission," Akalou tells InnovationMap. "I have been talking about the future of work for over a decade now. The paradigm will change to viewing work as a service, so it is important to tell a freelancer's story through a more engaging and novel way." Read more.

Serafina Lalany, chief of staff at Houston Exponential

Serafina Lalany joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss the HTX TechList, which launches this week. Photo courtesy of Serafina Lalany

Serafina Lalany is pinpoint focused on creating resources for Houston innovators through her work at Houston Exponential. Most recently, that's meant creating and launching the HTX TechList, which went live last week. For her, one of the most important benefits the platform will afford the city is access to data about the ecosystem.

"We needed a centralized datasource classifying startups, investors, startup development organizations, and corporate innovators," she says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "There was not any good resource on the internet that was verified, centralized, and adhered to a data standard." Read more and stream the episode.

Patrick Lewis, managing partner of Sustainability Ventures Group

Houston-based Sustainability Ventures Group is focused on connecting energy companies to innovative, sustainable solutions. Photo courtesy of SVG

As Patrick Lewis started to get a feel for what his network within the energy industry was looking for amid the pandemic, he thought some of the sustainability-focused ventures might be on the back burner.

"We thought we would hear that sustainability in this environment may have slipped down the priority list, but it was the exact opposite," Lewis says. "Pretty consistently across all the operators, sustainability, reducing emissions, and greenhouse gases — those are all even more important today."

This confirmation that the energy industry is committed to innovative sustainability projects led Lewis to rebrand his energy tech investment group from BBL Ventures to Sustainability Ventures Group, or SVG. The investment team focuses on reverse engineering the startup innovation process by sourcing the concerns and goals of the energy companies, then finding solutions from the startup world through reverse pitch competitions and challenges. Read more.

Houston — much like the rest of the world — has a growing freelance economy. A local innovator has created a platform for freelancers to find work. Photo courtesy of Common Desk

Houston entrepreneur creates a new digital platform to help connect freelancers to clients

calling all creatives

By 2027, freelancers will account for the majority of the American workforce — and Houston is already well represented by the freelance space.

According to a recent study, Houston is home to 117,260 skilled freelancers who generated more than $4.1 billion in revenue in 2018. This burgeoning environment for freelancers presents many opportunities for innovations in the tech world, as one Houston entrepreneur has already discovered.

Yared Akalou, founder-and-CEO of Alcove Group and self-described designer-focused entrepreneur, released his third innovation catering to freelancers of the Houston area. His digital solutions platform, IAmOther50, assists freelancers with securing new clients by sharing their personal stories rather than just submitting their professional experience, it uses videos and articles to promote the work of a freelancer and connect them to their next client.

"I am really on a mission," Akalou tells InnovationMap. "I have been talking about the future of work for over a decade now. The paradigm will change to viewing work as a service, so it is important to tell a freelancer's story through a more engaging and novel way."

At first glance, the digital platform seems like a departure for Akalou who in 2017 founded Alcove, a portable laptop case that serves as a private workspace for freelancers to use amid coffee shops or coworking spaces. However, IAmOther50 serves as a distinctly separate yet integral part of his innovation landscape.

"These projects have been a combination of my focus and research," says Akalou. "My new platform works hand in hand with Alcove, supporting the mission to help people stay productive from anywhere."

The digital platform serves to capture the brand of the freelancer along with their personality and experience. It lives at the intersection of popular social media platforms and professional platforms such as LinkedIn, except just for freelancers in the Houston area. Currently, any freelancing professional in the Houston area can join for free by filling out a survey that customizes their goals for their profile.

"IAmOther50 provides information in a contextual way," says Akalou. "We have this guiding principle of delivering value even before the prospective client contacts the freelancer for an interview or potential position. It's about going beyond just a resume of what you've done and showcasing how you add value right now."

Akalou, who is also one of the mentors in The Ion Smart and Resilient Cities Accelerator, is focused on elevating the professional profiles of many freelancers, including those outside the Houston area. He is aiming to grow the platform to a self-service platform that can connect freelancers to clients all over the biggest metropolitan areas soon.


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NASA unveils Artemis III astronauts at Johnson Space Center in Houston

To the moon

NASA on Tuesday, June 9, revealed the crew for its Artemis III mission, the next step in the space agency's plan to eventually land astronauts on the moon.

The announcement came two months after Artemis II's record-breaking trip around the moon that surpassed the distance record of Apollo 13.

NASA's Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio, Andre Douglas and the European Space Agency's Luca Parmitano won't fly to the moon or land on the surface. Instead, they’ll orbit Earth while practicing docking their Orion capsule with two lunar landers.

“To the Artemis III crew, we wish you Godspeed on the journey ahead,” said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin are racing to deliver the lunar landers. The two-week demo is targeted for 2027. Blue Origin suffered a recent setback when its massive rocket exploded during an engine-firing test on the launch pad in Florida, shaking nearby homes and illuminating the sky with an orange fireball.

NASA's Jeremy Parsons said the setback is a learning opportunity and that the space agency is confident Blue Origin's rocket will be ready in time.

NASA's Artemis program aims to return astronauts to the moon's surface for the first time since the 1970s. A recent revamp of the program announced by Isaacman aims to fast-track it similarly to the Apollo era, adding the upcoming spaceflight around Earth before eyeing a lunar landing in 2028.

“We are certainly humbled as a crew to be able to be your crew that executes this Artemis III mission in space,” said Bresnik, Artemis III commander.

Added Douglas, mission specialist: “My brain — it is going a mile a minute right now. But my heart, it is so warm. It is so full."

In May, NASA awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts to four companies, including Blue Origin, to build landers, rovers and drones for a future moon base. Isaacman said the goal of the moon base is to lay the foundation for a Mars expedition.

Meta to bring $115 million AI data center training initiative to Houston

ai workforce

Meta and Associated Builders and Contractors have entered into a partnership to invest $115 million in training programs for the construction of AI data centers, with a portion of the project launching in Houston.

The companies announced June 8 that they would open America’s Workforce Academies at ABC chapter training centers in Houston; Indianapolis; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Columbus, Ohio.

The academies will offer career readiness and safety training, plus five weeks of hands-on education. Participants who complete the program will be granted a job offer from contractors working on Meta projects.

“The AI revolution is bringing change but also historic opportunities,” Dina Powell McCormick, Meta president and vice-chairman, said in a news release. “Skilled workers electrified rural America one pole at a time. They manned the factories that built the arsenal that won World War II. Now a new generation will pour the foundations and lay the fiber that secures American strength in this new age.”

Overall, the Meta and ABC aim for the academies to build a more sustainable pipeline of skilled construction workers and ensure safety and job readiness for the surging number of data center projects underway.

“This new program is an innovative talent solution that is a critical part of addressing the construction industry’s ongoing workforce shortage and creates an accelerated, new-entrant strategy for job seekers ... The sustained demand for data center construction technicians means the industry needs an all-of-the-above approach to address this shortage and grow the construction talent pool,” Michael Bellaman, ABC president and CEO, added in the release.

In Texas, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has launched or broken ground on data centers in El Paso, Fort Worth and Temple. The company announced in March that it planned to grow its El Paso Data center by 1 gigawatt, representing more than a $10 billion investment.

Apart from Meta, Texas has attracted data center development to power other giants like Google and Amazon in recent years. In turn, Texas has been predicted to become the biggest data center market. Commercial real estate services provider JLL reported this spring that the state could topple Northern Virginia as the world’s largest data-center market by 2030. Similarly, CBRE predicted that Houston's data center capacity could double by 2028. Read more here.

New Houston biotech co. lands $30M for pulmonary fibrosis drug

drug money

Most of us can claim a scar or two on our bodies. But when scarring develops inside the body, it’s known as a fibrotic disorder. A freshly launched Houston company, Oorja Bio Inc., is working on a treatment that can help to repair cells and reduce the damage wrought by the growth of fibrotic tissue in patients.

Late last month, Oorja Bio hit the scene with a pair of big announcements. Not only has the company raised a $30 million Series A thanks to founding investor California-based Westlake BioPartners, but it has also already paved the way for a Phase 2 study to take place this year.

Oorja Bio received Investigational New Drug (IND) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), allowing the company to test its treatment in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a scarring of the lung tissue. IPF affects more than 150,000 adults in the United States and can result in a range of symptoms from shortness of breath to organ failure and death as it progresses.

Oorja Bio’s lead drug candidate, ORJ-001, was shown in a Phase 1 in-human trial to demonstrate “therapeutically relevant exposure and favorable tolerability” in 64 healthy adult volunteers in whom it was administered daily or weekly, according to a news release. Pre-clinical studies of ORJ-001 showed durable target tissue engagement and biomarker activity in bleomycin-induced lung fibrosis.

Administered subcutaneously, ORJ-001 is intended to improve and even restore function in cells that can reduce the signaling that causes IPF. It stops advancement of IPF and also allows for tissue repair. Currently available treatments for the disease can slow the development of IPF down, but do not address the declining lung function that’s inherent in its progression.

“The clinical and preclinical results from our studies to date give us confidence that ORJ-001 represents a novel treatment approach with the potential to repair and reverse fibrosis and modify disease progression in IPF,” Dr. Janethe Pena, CMO of Oorja Bio, said in the release.

“Our team is energized to deliver on our goal of redefining the future of fibrotic diseases, beginning with ORJ-001,” CEO and founder Sujay Kango added. “As we advance ORJ-001 in the clinic, we are embracing the paradigm shift in our biological understanding of IPF pathology that aligns with the central role of the alveolar epithelium. ORJ-001 was designed with this biology in mind and may provide, for the first time, a therapeutic intervention that repairs and reverses fibrosis and promotes disease modification.”

Most patients live only three to five years following their IPF diagnosis. Soon, ORJ-001 and Oorja Bio could give them a fighting chance.

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