5 top trending innovation stories in Houston this week

What you're reading

Among this week's top stories is a s. Courtesy of Fluidity

Editor's note: It's a weird and short holiday week for Houston, but InnovationMap readers (and staff) are still keeping busy. This week's trending stories — about everything from a drone tool designed by an astronaut to can't-miss events — are proof enough.

Houston-based company's device is revolutionizing drone technology across industries

Fluidity Technologies' joystick-like device is designed based on movement in space. Courtesy of Fluidity

It's not enough that Scott Parazynski has spent 57 days, 15 hours and 34 minutes in space. Nor is the fact that he's trained as a trauma surgeon. Not even climbing Mount Everest as a team physician for the Discovery Channel could satisfy one of Earth's most talent-blessed residents. Now Parazynski is on course to change multiple industries with his latest invention: A joystick-like drone controller. Read the full story here.

5 can't-miss innovation events for January

From enlightening talks to anniversary celebrations, here's where you need to be in January. Getty Images

Houston's innovation community is starting 2019 strong with plenty of business professional events. Read the full story here.

Houston startup plans to expand services and footprint following $2 million seed round

Ben Johnson's business idea turned into a growing company making the lives of apartment dwellers easier. Courtesy of Apartment Butler

Ben Johnson thought consolidating resident services for household chores — like doing the dishes and walking the dog — could be done more efficiently. So, he created Houston-based Apartment Butler in 2016 to do just that.

"I started thinking a lot about apartment industry," Johnson, who is the founder and CEO, says. "I just saw the industry as a whole is one that hadn't been really disrupted yet — the technology was dated." Read the full story here.

3 Houston innovators to know this week

While each of this week's three innovators has years of experience under their belts, they are each starting something new. Courtesy photos

Common ingredients among entrepreneurs is a great idea, plenty of hard work, and a whole lot of luck. And, if they are lucky, they've got some experience under their belts too. These three innovators this week are all in the process of starting something — a venture fund, an app, an investment platform — but lucky for them, they know what they're doing. Read the full story here.

Houston declared one of the most affordable places to live and work in 2019

Houstonians get to keep a good bit of cash in their pockets. Photo by Jacob Power

A new study indicates it's worth it to live and work in Houston. The study, done by BusinessStudent.com, puts Houston among the country's 25 most affordable places to live and work for 2019. Read the full story here.


While each of this week's three innovators has years of experience under their belts, they are each starting something new. Courtesy photos

3 Houston innovators to know this week

Who's who

Common ingredients among entrepreneurs is a great idea, plenty of hard work, and a whole lot of luck. And, if they are lucky, they've got some experience under their belts too. These three innovators this week are all in the process of starting something — a venture fund, an app, an investment platform — but lucky for them, they know what they're doing.

Allison Lami Sawyer, partner at The League of Worthwhile Ventures

Courtesy of Allison Lami Sawer

Allison Lami Sawyer's story has stuck with me since I first heard it a few weeks ago. Primarily because she's a fantastic storyteller paired with, well, a great story. She's from Alabama and didn't really meet a female entrepreneur until she was one. She started Rebellion Photonics and ran it for several years before recently leaving to start something new: a seed fund called The League of Worthwhile Ventures. Sawyer isn't afraid to start something new and cherishes her role inspiring or advising other women entrepreneurs by being a role model for innovation — something she didn't have as a kid. Read the full story here.

Chris Staffel, COO at Patients We Share

Courtesy of Chris Staffel

While relatively new to the health care business, Chris Staffel has tons of business experience from both coasts. She brings those skills to Patients We Share, an app aiming to enhance and improve doctor referrals. The idea originated from two doctors here in Houston, but as it started to take off, they invested in business professionals like Staffel to make their dream a reality. Read the full story here.

Rashad Kurbanov, CEO and co-founder of iownit.us

Courtesy of iownit.us

I'm bending the rules a little bit here because, unfortunately, Houston cannot claim Rashad Kurbanov. However, the New Yorker is betting on Houston for his new company, iownit.us. The website is a platform for private securities investors and fund-raising companies to connect and make deals — without any red tape. Kurbanov has years of financial experience, but has never done anything like this before because well, no one has. Read the full story here.

Efficient referrals from doctor to doctor could save a life, so this Houston company is setting out to create a network of medical professionals all accessible in an app. Getty Images

Houston-based company is connecting the dots on patient referrals

Diagnosing doctors

When your doctor recommends that you visit another practitioner, it's only natural that you trust the suggestion. But it's one case in which your physician isn't always an expert. Married doctors Justin Bird, an orthopedic surgeon, and Terri-Ann Samuels, a specialist in female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery, have long noted that patients are often referred incorrectly.

No big deal, right? Just go to another doctor. But not everyone has that luxury. Bird and Samuels never intended to start their own company. But when Bird lost a patient due to faulty referrals, they knew something had to be done.

"He believes that if she hadn't been bounced around from doctor to doctor, they could have saved her life," says Chris E. Staffel, chief operating officer of Patients We Share, the app that the couple created to fix the broken aspect of the health care system.

In 2015, Bird and Samuels began their company when they were shocked to realize that such an app didn't already exist.

"They started working with physicians around the country who said, 'We really, really need this,' and they also invested in it," recounts Staffel. From those friends, they built a physician advisory board of 15 investors.

Prescribing growth
The project was accepted into Johnson & Johnson's incubator, JLABS in 2016, then TMCx's digital startup program in the spring of 2018.

"They started realizing it was gaining momentum and realized they needed to have business people on board," says Staffel.

They hired Michael Antonoff, a Rice University M.B.A., as CEO. He invited former classmate Staffel to join as COO. Having come from a background in oil and gas, Staffel jumped at the chance to try her hand in a different industry.

With new business clout behind PWS, the company is growing quickly. Currently, PWS is entering its next seed round of $2.5 million that will allow the company to pay salaries of new team members and bring some tech development in-house. Until now, the making of the app itself has been outsourced to Mobisoft Infotech, a company based in Houston and India, which has worked on many projects at the Texas Medical Center. Local Black + Grey Studio is responsible for the design.

PWS has been working with both those teams in recent months to get a prototype app ready for launch. Currently, 100 physicians around the country are part of an invite-only pilot program. Soon, Staffel hopes to allow early adopter doctors who haven't been invited to enroll in the program for free. It will likely be in 2020 that patients will start joining the community, too.

How it works
An index of all the providers on the app allows doctors to easily find practitioners in a particular specialty. But there's more to it. Detailed profiles contribute to machine learning that assures the optimal match every time. Patient reviews will also play a role.

Though referrals were the impetus for the creation of PWS, it may be even more important as a communication tool between doctors, fellow clinicians (anyone from nurse practitioners to physical therapists may be invited to join), and patients. Staffel says participants in the pilot program are already using the messaging system to compare notes on cases, even sending photos from surgery to consult on patient issues.

The app's encryption means that it's HIPAA-compliant. Patients provide permission to discuss their cases via the app. And they can be confident of the quality of care they'll receive. Likely, the app will remain largely invite-only, and everyone who joins will share their National Provider Identifier licenses to be vetted against the federal database.

Doctors will communicate directly with patients through the app, but will also share resources digitally. Instead of making copy after copy of information about post-surgical care, for instance, the physician need only press a button to share a link.

Eventually, the goal is for PWS to be used not just nationally, but internationally, not just by individuals, but by whole hospital systems. A world in which doctors can compare notes around globe could be a little safer for us all.

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Houston humanoid robotics startup Persona AI hires new strategy leader

new hire

Houston-based Persona AI, a two-year-old startup that develops robots for heavy industry, has hired an automation and robotics professional as its head of commercial strategy.

In his new position, Michael Perry will focus on building Persona AI’s business development operations, coordinating with strategic partners and helping early adopters of the company’s humanoids. Target customers include offshore platforms, shipyards, steel mills and construction sites.

Perry previously served as vice president of business development at Boston Dynamics, where he led market identification for robotics, and as an executive at DJI. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Chinese and government studies from the University of Texas at Austin.

“Now is the perfect time to join Persona AI as we rapidly close the gap between what’s possible in the lab versus what’s driving real commercial value,” Perry says. “Building industry-hardened humanoid hardware and production-deployable AI is only one piece of the puzzle.”

“Getting humanoids into operations for heavy industry will require the systematic commercial and operational work that makes enterprises humanoid-ready and defining the business case, solving the integration challenges, and building the playbook for safe, scalable adoption,” he adds. “That’s what I’m here to build.”

Rice to lead Space Force tech institute under $8.1M agreement

space deal

Rice University has signed an $8.1 million cooperative agreement to lead the U.S. Space Force University Consortium/Space Strategic Technology Institute 4 (SSTI).

The new entity will be known as the Center for Advanced Space Sensing Technologies (CASST) at Rice and will focus on developing innovative remote sensing technologies.

“This investment positions Rice at the forefront of the technologies that will define how we see, understand and operate in space,” Amy Dittmar, Howard R. Hughes Provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, said in a news release. “By bringing together advanced remote sensing, AI-driven analysis and cross-institutional expertise, CASST will help transform raw space data into real-time insight and expand the frontiers of scientific discovery.

The news comes shortly after the Texas Space Commission approved a nearly $14.2 million grant for the newly created Center for Space Technologies at Rice.

David Alexander, director of the Rice Space Institute, will lead CASST. Alexander is also an inaugural member of the Texas Aerospace Research and Space Economy Consortium and he serves on the boards of the Houston Spaceport Development Corporation, SpaceCom and the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture. The team also includes Rice professors and staff Kevin Kelly, Tomasz Tkaczyk, Kenny Evans, Kaden Hazzard, Mark Jernigan and Vinod Veedu, and collaborators from Houston-based Aegis Aerospace, University of California, Los Angeles, University of California, Santa Barbara and Georgia Institute of Technology.

In addition to bringing new space sensor innovation, the team will also work to miniaturize sensors while developing and implementing low-resource fabrication techniques, according to Rice. The researchers will also utilize AI and machine learning to analyze sensor data.

The U.S. Space Force uses space sensors to provide real-time information about space environments and assess potential threats. CASST is the fourth Space Strategic Technology Institute established by the USSF.

“Rice has helped shape the modern era of space research, and CASST marks a bold step into what comes next,” David Sholl, executive vice president for research at Rice, said in a news release. “As space becomes more contested and more essential to daily life, the ability to rapidly sense, interpret and act on what’s happening beyond Earth is critical. This center brings together the materials, engineering and data science innovations needed to deliver that capability."

The USSF University Consortium works with academic teams to develop breakthrough technologies and speed their transition into real-world applications for the U.S. Space Force.

The recent Rice award is part of $16 million over about three years. The USSF also signed a cooperative agreement with the University of Arizona in February.

The consortium has also helped facilitate several technological and commercial transitions over the last two years, including a $36 million commercial contract awarded to Axiom by Texas A&M University's in-space operations team and a follow-on $6 million contract to Axiom to build on technology developed by the University of Texas.

Leading Houston energy ecosystem rebrands for next phase

new look

Houston-based Energytech Nexus has rebranded.

The cleantech founders community will now be known as Energytech Cypher. Organizers say the new name was inspired by the Arabic roots of the word cypher, ṣifr, which is also the root of the word zero.

"A cypher is a key that unlocks what's hidden," Nada Ahmed, co-founder and chief revenue officer of Energytech Cypher, said in a news release. "And zero? Zero is where every transformation begins, the leap from 0 to 1, from idea to reality, from potential to power. We decode the energy transition by connecting the right founders, the right capital, and the right corporate partners at the right time, because the most important journey in energy is the one that takes you from nothing to something."

Energytech Nexus has rebranded to Energytech Cypher.

Co-founder and CEO Jason Ethier says that the name change better reflects the organization's mission.

"The energy transition doesn't have a technology problem. It has a connection problem," Ehtier added in the release. "The right founders exist. The right investors exist. The right partners exist. What's been missing is the infrastructure to bring them together—to decode the complexity, remove the friction, and make sure the best technologies find the markets that need them. That's what this community has always done. Energytech Cypher is the name that finally says it."

Energytech Cypher, previously known as Energytech Nexus, was first launched in 2023 and has grown from a podcast to a 130-member ecosystem. It has supported startups including Capwell Services, Resollant, Syzygy Plasmonics, Hertha Metals, Solidec and many others.

It is known for its flagship programs like the Pilotathon, which connects founders with industry partners for pilot opportunities. The event debuted in 2024.

Energytech Cypher also launched its COPILOT Accelerator last year. The accelerator partners with Browning the Green Space, a nonprofit that promotes diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the clean energy and climatech sectors. The inaugural cohort included two Houston-based startups and 12 others from around the U.S.

It also hosts programs like Liftoff, Energy Tech Market, lunch and learns, CEO roundtables, investor workshops and international partnership initiatives.

Last year, Energytech Cypher also announced a new strategic ecosystem partnership with Greentown Labs, aimed at accelerating growth for clean energy startups. It also named its global founding partners, including Houston-based operations such as Chevron Technology Ventures, Collide, Oxy Technology Ventures, and others from around the world.

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

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