A Houston entrepreneur is creating a fun and educational platform for children that helps to preserve their heritage. Photo by Kelly Sikkema/Unsplash

Theoharis Dimarhos grew up in a family determined to follow tradition. As a child, his mother serenaded him with old Greek folk songs he still remembers, and his parents made speaking Greek a rule of the house. Dimarhos lived the immigrant family experience, and now he's developed a modern way to preserve pass down culture to the masses.

"My parents came from Greece in 1981, and in typical fashion, they didn't have much and didn't speak the language at all," says Dimarhos, who was born in Cleveland, Ohio. Living the first-generation American experience, he watched his parents work tirelessly to provide for the family and maintain their Greek culture in America.

Dimarhos did get his own immigrant story when his parents decided to move back to Greece when he was 7. After assimilating to Greece, he traveled back to the United States for college, where he learned to readjust once more.

"I kind of got that immigrant experience a couple of times," he says.

While Dimarhos grew up surrounded by his own heritage, he began to realize that "our native cultures were destined to fade if there wasn't a more modern way for children and our little siblings to learn more about their roots."

When talking with his friends from other countries outside of Greece, a general consensus grew: without modern learning, family heritage would slip away.

Enter: Ellis, an app that helps children connect to their culture. The app includes Greek songs, fables, mythology, history, and language.

Named after Ellis Island, a gateway into the United States for so many immigrants in history, Ellis nurtures Greek tradition in a way that caters to children through technology.

"I've always seen [Ellis Island] as a monument of courage to chase your dreams. . .people came and built this country, but also never forgot where they came from."

Interactive technology is becoming a large part of early childhood education, especially during COVID-19, as more families are at-home with children learning virtually. Children are the targets of over 80 percent of the top-selling paid apps in the education category of the iTunes store, according to a published analysis by Carly Shuler in 2012.

Dimarhos and his wife are deeply tied to their Greek heritage, and hope to pass that history and appreciation to their own children once they start a family.

"We wanted to make sure that there was a 21st century way for us and for our children to learn that goes beyond books," he says. "Something that's a little more immersive and fun — fun is very important — and educational."

Ellis is currently being beta tested with a group of 200 active users within the Greek community. The app, which targets ages 0-8, rolls out weekly content to parents.

"I'm receiving texts from friends who are parents begging me to put more content out because they need something to keep their children occupied," says Dimarhos. "Not only are regular schools closed, but cultural schools that are offered by the community are also closed and struggling to open back up."

Time spent on the app can be as short as five minutes and stretch into hours of learning time.

"The goal is always for children to pick up little phrases and words each time they listen," explains Dimarhos.

The stories and songs are all audio-based, tying into activities like waking up, eating breakfast, and bathtime.

"There's something magical about tying in an audio story or song with everyday tasks for kids," says Dimarhos.

Dimarhos parents see the app as "the next step of passing down the torch of our culture," he says.

"They tried to do it with the tools that they had for myself and my sister. . .We're trying to do the exact same thing that they did and their parents did, just with the tools that technology offers us," he says.

Dimarhos, who previously worked in economic development in Austin, had his first experience with startups when his former boss gave him a chance to work with his international accelerator for startups.

"I got my opening into the tech world through the international accelerator and seeing amazing immigrant founders create jobs and strive to do great things in America," he shares.

"Quite honestly, a startup that celebrates different cultures couldn't have a better home than in Houston," he says, noting the massive immigrant population and variety of cultures in the city.

In Dimarhos' own life, he's come across immigrants as well as first and second generation Americans who wish to preserve their own cultures.

"They've wished there was a more modern way to have access to those resources," he explains.

In the future, Dimarhos intends to quickly broaden the app to "launch in every immigrant community in the United States and around the world."

Connecting to cultural roots is something Dimarhos feels is "sacred" to immigrant families.

"It's something that you have the obligation from your parents as they give you everything for you to succeed in life. You kind of carry that obligation to carry that torch and pass it on to your children and their children," he explains.

"We grow up with that and the vision and the mission is just to create something that makes that a little bit easier to keep our cultures alive. I honestly think it's part of what makes this country great," he says.

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Greentown Labs names Lawson Gow as its new Houston leader

head of hou

Greentown Labs has named Lawson Gow as its Head of Houston.

Gow is the founder of The Cannon, a coworking space with seven locations in the Houston area, with additional partner spaces. He also recently served as managing partner at Houston-based investment and advisory firm Helium Capital. Gow is the son of David Gow, founder of Energy Capital's parent company, Gow Media.

According to Greentown, Gow will "enhance the founder experience, cultivate strategic partnerships, and accelerate climatetech solutions" in his new role.

“I couldn’t be more excited to join Greentown at this critical moment for the energy transition,” Gow said in a news release. “Greentown has a fantastic track record of supporting entrepreneurs in Houston, Boston, and beyond, and I am eager to keep advancing our mission in the energy transition capital of the world.”

Gow has also held analyst, strategy and advising roles since graduating from Rice University.

“We are thrilled to welcome Lawson to our leadership team,” Georgina Campbell Flatter, CEO of Greentown Labs, added in the release. “Lawson has spent his career building community and championing entrepreneurs, and we look forward to him deepening Greentown’s support of climate and energy startups as our Head of Houston.”

Gow is the latest addition to a series of new hires at Greentown Labs following a leadership shakeup.

Flatter was named as the organization's new CEO in February, replacing Kevin Dutt, Greentown’s interim CEO, who replaced Kevin Knobloch after he announced that he would step down in July 2024 after less than a year in the role.

Greentown also named Naheed Malik its new CFO in January.

Timmeko Moore Love was named the first Houston general manager and senior vice president of Greentown Labs. According to LinkedIn, she left the role in January.

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This article originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

Houston foundation grants $27M to support Texas chemistry research

fresh funding

Houston-based The Welch Foundation has doled out $27 million in its latest round of grants for chemical research, equipment and postdoctoral fellowships.

According to a June announcement, $25.5 million was allocated for the foundation's longstanding research grants, which provide $100,000 per year in funding for three years to full-time, regular tenure or tenure-track faculty members in Texas. The foundation made 85 grants to faculty at 16 Texas institutions for 2025, including:

  • Michael I. Jacobs, assistant professor in the chemistry and biochemistry department at Texas State University, who is investigating the structure and thermodynamics of intrinsically disordered proteins, which could "reveal clues about how life began," according to the foundation.
  • Kendra K. Frederick, assistant professor in the biophysics department at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who is studying a protein linked to Parkinson’s disease.
  • Jennifer S. Brodbelt, professor in chemistry at The University of Texas at Austin, who is testing a theory called full replica symmetry breaking (fullRSB) on glass-like materials, which has implications for complex systems in physics, chemistry and biology.

Additional funding will be allocated to the Welch Postdoctoral Fellows of the Life Sciences Research Foundation. The program provides three-year fellowships to recent PhD graduates to support clinical research careers in Texas. Two fellows from Rice University and Baylor University will receive $100,000 annually for three years.

The Welch Foundation also issued $975,000 through its equipment grant program to 13 institutions to help them develop "richer laboratory experience(s)." The universities matched funds of $352,346.

Since 1954, the Welch Foundation has contributed over $1.1 billion for Texas-nurtured advancements in chemistry through research grants, endowed chairs and other chemistry-related ventures. Last year, the foundation granted more than $40.5 million in academic research grants, equipment grants and fellowships.

“Through funding basic chemical research, we are actively investing in the future of humankind,” Adam Kuspa, president of The Welch Foundation, said the news release. “We are proud to support so many talented researchers across Texas and continue to be inspired by the important work they complete every day.”

New Houston biotech co. developing capsules for hard-to-treat tumors

biotech breakthroughs

Houston company Sentinel BioTherapeutics has made promising headway in cancer immunotherapy for patients who don’t respond positively to more traditional treatments. New biotech venture creation studio RBL LLC (pronounced “rebel”) recently debuted the company at the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting in Chicago.

Rima Chakrabarti is a neurologist by training. Though she says she’s “passionate about treating the brain,” her greatest fervor currently lies in leading Sentinel as its CEO. Sentinel is RBL’s first clinical venture, and Chakrabarti also serves as cofounder and managing partner of the venture studio.

The team sees an opportunity to use cytokine interleukin-2 (IL-2) capsules to fight many solid tumors for which immunotherapy hasn't been effective in the past. “We plan to develop a pipeline of drugs that way,” Chakrabarti says.

This may all sound brand-new, but Sentinel’s research goes back years to the work of Omid Veiseh, director of the Rice Biotechnology Launch Pad (RBLP). Through another, now-defunct company called Avenge Bio, Veiseh and Paul Wotton — also with RBLP and now RBL’s CEO and chairman of Sentinel — invested close to $45 million in capital toward their promising discovery.

From preclinical data on studies in mice, Avenge was able to manufacture its platform focused on ovarian cancer treatments and test it on 14 human patients. “That's essentially opened the door to understanding the clinical efficacy of this drug as well as it's brought this to the attention of the FDA, such that now we're able to continue that conversation,” says Chakrabarti. She emphasizes the point that Avenge’s demise was not due to the science, but to the company's unsuccessful outsourcing to a Massachusetts management team.

“They hadn't analyzed a lot of the data that we got access to upon the acquisition,” explains Chakrabarti. “When we analyzed the data, we saw this dose-dependent immune activation, very specific upregulation of checkpoints on T cells. We came to understand how effective this agent could be as an immune priming agent in a way that Avenge Bio hadn't been developing this drug.”

Chakrabarti says that Sentinel’s phase II trials are coming soon. They’ll continue their previous work with ovarian cancer, but Chakrabarti says that she also believes that the IL-2 capsules will be effective in the treatment of endometrial cancer. There’s also potential for people with other cancers located in the peritoneal cavity, such as colorectal cancer, gastrointestinal cancer and even primary peritoneal carcinomatosis.

“We're delivering these capsules into the peritoneal cavity and seeing both the safety as well as the immune activation,” Chakrabarti says. “We're seeing that up-regulation of the checkpoint that I mentioned. We're seeing a strong safety signal. This drug was very well-tolerated by patients where IL-2 has always had a challenge in being a well-tolerated drug.”

When phase II will take place is up to the success of Sentinel’s fundraising push. What we do know is that it will be led by Amir Jazaeri at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Part of the goal this summer is also to create an automated cell manufacturing process and prove that Sentinel can store its product long-term.

“This isn’t just another cell therapy,” Chakrabarti says.

"Sentinel's cytokine factory platform is the breakthrough technology that we believe has the potential to define the next era of cancer treatment," adds Wotton.