3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Jim Gable of Chevon, Brad Burke of Rice Alliance, and Chris Romani of illumipure. Photos courtesy

Editor's note: In this week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to three local innovators across industries — from academia to energy tech — recently making headlines in Houston innovation.

Houston energy innovator on why now's the right time for energy transition innovation

Jim Gable, vice president of innovation at Chevron and president of Chevron Technology Ventures, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast. Photo courtesy

The cleantech innovation space has momentum, and Chevron strives to be one of the incumbent energy companies playing a role in that movement, Jim Gable, vice president of innovation at Chevron and president of Chevron Technology Ventures, shares on the Houston Innovators Podcast.

"People call it cleantech 2.0, but it's really cleantech 3.0," Gable says, explaining how he's been there for each wave of cleantech. "The people are better now — the entrepreneurs are better, the investors are better. Exits are here in the cleantech space."

"It's all driven by policy-enabled markets, and the policy is here now too. Twenty years ago, you didn't have nearly the same level of policy influence that you do now," he continues. "Things are coming together to help us really create and deliver that affordable, reliable, ever cleaner energy that's going to be needed for a long time." Read more.

Brad Burke, managing director of the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship

Brad Burke, managing director of the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship, has received an impressive award for his leadership. Photo via Rice.edu

A figurehead in Houston's innovation ecosystem has received an award for his career leading innovation in higher education.

Brad Burke, who's served as managing director of the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship since its inception 22 years ago, received the Outstanding Contributions to Advancing Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Higher Education Award. Burke was presented with the award at the 2023 Deshpande Symposium for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Higher Education.

Recognizing an individual who has proven to be successful in leading entrepreneurship within higher education, the award was founded by serial entrepreneur Desh Deshpande. The event attracts academics, policy planners, and practitioners every year to share thought leadership within higher education entrepreneurship and innovation. Read more.

Chris Romani, chief marketing officer for illumiPure

If mobile marketing isn't in your startup's toolkit, it should be. Photo courtesy

When it comes to marketing tools, there's a lot out there. Some aren't worth it, but some can make a huge difference. Chris Romani, chief marketing officer for illumiPure, Houston-based medical device company, in a guest column for InnovationMap, outlined some of the tools that make an impact.

"For startups, when and how to begin marketing their business can feel like a cumbersome task," he explains. "As a chief marketing officer, I was asked to list services and channels that I oversee, and I came up with 16. For founders of startups who must often take on the roles of CEO and COO in addition to CMO as they look to expand their teams, that time commitment is not reasonable for someone who also has a personal life." Read more.

If mobile marketing isn't in your startup's toolkit, it should be. Photo via Getty Images

How to leverage mobile marketing for your startup, according to this Houston expert

Guest column

Consumer privacy is driving startups to immediately begin marketing and data collection. Google and Apple have recently stressed the importance of first-party data collection for businesses. For the last two decades, businesses have had access to cookies to advertise to people who visited their digital assets. Digital advertising has already changed with Apple’s iOS 14.5 alterations, switching the default of ad tracking from yes to no and both Google and Apple expect data privacy to increase.

For startups, when and how to begin marketing their business can feel like a cumbersome task. As a chief marketing officer, I was asked to list services and channels that I oversee, and I came up with 16. For founders of startups who must often take on the roles of CEO and COO in addition to CMO as they look to expand their teams, that time commitment is not reasonable for someone who also has a personal life.

Entrepreneurs need tools that are simple to institute and not cost prohibitive, to meet their respective milestones. First, we need to collect first party data, so that when we get to our minimum viable product we have plenty of people waiting to buy it. Next, marketing must work even when we can’t focus on it. Third, we must focus on revenue generating activities, whether they are marketing or not. Finally, we want to create an environment where successful entrepreneurs have a work and life balance.

Before doing anything else — get a virtual phone number

A virtual phone number is the first marketing tool I would use for any business. This number can be connected to your cell phone during certain hours of the day and disconnected for others. This allows people to reach you on your schedule. Put this phone number on every asset you have, so it can be integrated into future tools, such as customer relationship management and Google My Business. With proper opt-in information, it also creates an immediate list for SMS marketing in the future. A virtual phone number typically runs $1 to $2 a month plus usage fees, so it can be used by any business.

It is important that this is set up first, because without this, you can’t use the following marketing tools effectively.

Tool 1: Missed Call – Text Back

An entrepreneurs’ worst nightmare is missing an important phone call, whether it’s an investor or closing your first sale. Constant phone and email checking causes anxiety, but more importantly, it is a low revenue activity, so you are actively hurting your business.

Missed Call – Text Back, or MCTB, allows a customizable text message to be delivered to a client when you miss their phone call. It moves the caller towards resolution (sales or otherwise) immediately encouraging them to give you more information about their problem. The best part is, that once you have the system in place, it costs you zero time. Imagine walking out of a meeting and instead of 10 missed calls, you have 10 text messages that you can quickly answer. How much time did you just get back?

Pro Tip: In many cases, you can automate your emails in a similar way.

Tool 2: A funnel page

Now that we have a tool that allows us to work productively without constant phone checking, we need to increase our book of business. This is where a funnel comes in.

A funnel is a unique digital experience you would like a specific person — a client or investor — to have. When you start a business, a funnel can be your website because you only have one specific thing you want any visitor to do, like collect information.

Almost every consultant to new businesses is promoting funnel building. Why? Because a good funnel motivates people to act in a specific way. If you are raising funds, you want an investor to have a specific experience to garner interest, not hope they navigate to the correct webpage. If you have a new technology, you want early adopters to learn and then provide a simple way to collect their information, so that you can contact them when your product is ready. Finally, if you’re about to hit the market with your new product, providing customers with a simple purchase method will improve revenue during your important proof-of-concept period.

Funnels, like MCTB, can grow and adapt with your business, providing different groups of people with different experiences, with minimal effort. For instance, suppose I created a dating app and needed early adopters. Instead of creating one funnel, let’s say I created two. The only difference between the two funnels, is the first one’s headline was “The No. 1 new dating app for men” and then the second one said women. Everything else remains the same, but the experience is immediately different for the consumer. The more you can change the funnel to cater to their personal experience, the better it will be, but even simple changes can go a long way.

Pro Tip: Funnels are easiest to keep track of when they are subdomains of your website.

Tool 3: Automated SMS marketing

The final tool I recommend to start is Automated SMS Marketing. Assuming you have people properly opted in from your funnel — review Telephone Consumer Protection Act (1991) to ensure legal compliance — you can make sure they receive a welcome message in the first 5 minutes.

The most important part of text messaging marketing is allowing your customer to believe they are really having a conversation with you. If you can avoid it, never tell a customer that your digital number is automated. If you need, tell them it is automated but overseen by you. You are the owner of the business or the inventor of the technology, people want to talk to you. Customers want to pretend that they know you. Allow them this feeling. Once the customer responds, you should be picking up an organic conversation with them anyway.

Bringing it together

Using these tools, we have created a simple, repeatable method to gather customer data and start their customer journey. Your funnel may also help you gather an email list, but your most active prospects will be more than willing to communicate with you over the phone.

When you can’t take calls, whether it’s because you are in a meeting or with your kids, you can rest easier, knowing that potential customers get an immediate response that helps them get where they need to go, or at the very least, when you get back to work, you can help them quickly.

And the best part for a new entrepreneur is that this can all be done cost effectively. Personally, I recommend a service called HighLevel, a feature-rich cost-effective CRM, that includes all of the tools previously discussed. Most tech savvy entrepreneurs can figure out how to institute all these practices quickly from one platform in a no code environment. If you’d rather have assistance, there are 20,000 agencies that use the platform and just as many YouTube videos.

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Chris Romani is the chief marketing officer for illumiPure, a Houston-based medical device company.

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ExxonMobil gets approval for $5B Texas Gulf Coast carbon capture project

CCS Expansion

Spring-based ExxonMobil has won approval from the Texas Railroad Commission for a $5 billion carbon capture and storage project in East Texas.

Dominic Genetti, senior vice president of CCS at ExxonMobil, told The Financial Times, which broke the news, that the Railroad Commission’s action is a “major milestone” that lets the company keep expanding along the Gulf Coast. In a 2-1 vote, commissioners authorized a carbon sequestration permit for the project.

“The Railroad Commission clearly recognizes the important role carbon capture and storage can play in meeting growing global demand for lower-carbon products while supporting new jobs and economic growth,” Genetti said.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved ExxonMobil’s Rose CCS project last year.

The project will enable the company to inject about 53 metric tons of industrial customers’ carbon emissions into three underground wells it drilled in the Beaumont-Port Arthur area. Over a 13-year period, ExxonMobil plans to inject about 4 million metric tons per year into the Fleming and Upper Frio rock formations, according to Carbon Herald.

ExxonMobil says it owns the world’s first and largest CCS system, comprising 1,300 miles of CO2 pipeline and secure storage sites. Seventy percent of the pipelines are along the Gulf Coast.

The company ramped up its CCS business in 2023 with the $4.9 billion purchase of Denbury, which owned about 1,000 miles of CO2 pipelines.

“Our expertise, combined with Denbury’s talent and CO2 pipeline network, expands our low-carbon leadership and best positions us to meet the decarbonization needs of industrial customers while also reducing emissions in our own operations,” ExxonMobil Chairman and CEO Darren Woods said when the deal closed.

In January, Genetti wrote in a post on ExxonMobil’s website that the company is committed to CCS “for the long haul.”

“CCS is not new technology, but it’s flown relatively under the radar compared with the attention that production of hydrocarbons commands,” he wrote. “Now, as the world becomes more aware of the need to reduce emissions, CCS finally has a brighter spotlight and a broader runway to scale up.”

The company also announced this week that it has begun CCS operations at a direct reduced iron facility in Convent, Louisiana. The project will capture, transport and store up to 800,000 metric tons of CO2 per year, according to the company.

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This article first appeared on EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

Houston researchers develop breakthrough device that could bypass spinal injuries

breakthrough research

Scientists at Houston Methodist have announced a significant leap forward for spinal cord injury recovery.

The researchers have developed a device that essentially bypasses spinal injuries, allowing signals from previously “lost” functions to reach the brain, a new study published in Nature Communications shows.

“Most current technologies try to improve whatever function remains after a spinal cord injury,” Dr. Damiano Barone, assistant professor of neurosurgery in the Department of Neurosurgery at Houston Methodist and co-lead on the study, said in a news release. “Our goal is different. Rather than fixing the injury itself, we want to bypass it completely and create an alternative route for signals to travel.”

The study involved a single ultrathin circumferential electrode array made to conform around the spinal cord without penetrating neural tissue, which was implanted into rodent and pig models with spinal injuries. The electrode array was able to interpret motor, sensory and autonomic signals around the injury. Think of it as a set of detours that restore road access to isolated towns after a disaster destroys the highway instead of just rebuilding the highway.

Over the course of three days, the arrays detected signals of intended movement from low-frequency spinal oscillations with more than 94 percent accuracy. This worked across species and was replicated in feasibility studies on human cadavers.

This research could serve as a new foundation for neuroprosthetic implants that could restore connectivity to the 2.5 million people worldwide suffering from spinal injuries that result in loss of ability. Future development could result in everything from restored organ function to mobility, according to Houston Methodist.

George Malliaras, the Prince Professor of Technology in the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge, who co-led the study, sees it as a fundamental restructuring of the science of spinal trauma.

“This could represent a paradigm change in how we think about spinal cord injuries,” Malliaras said. “Instead of starting from the idea that what is lost is gone forever, this approach asks whether we can restore function by carrying the signal around the injury.”

Further work involving laboratory models will need to be completed before launching human trials.

Grants from the National Institutes of Health, Houston Methodist Katz Investigator Award, Helaers Research Award and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council helped support the study. Other collaborators on the study include Salim Hadwe, Ruben Serrano, George Psaltakis, Margaux Forner, Chaeyeon Lee, Sydney Swedick, Moleca Ghnnam, Tawfique Hasan and Alejandro Carnicer-Lombarte from the University of Cambridge; and Anton Banta and Xueer Zhang from Houston Methodist.

Abbott assembles expert team to help lure U.S. Space Academy to Texas

space race

State Rep. Greg Bonnen of Friendswood has been tapped to lead a new team that will promote Texas as the future home of the U.S. Space Academy.

Bonnen, a neurosurgeon, chairs Houston Physicians’ Hospital and the powerful Texas House Appropriations Committee. His House district is close to NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

Gov. Greg Abbott appointed the seven-member team. Last month, President Trump signed an executive order establishing the Presidential Commission on the U.S. Space Academy. Commission members, who held their first meeting this month, will recommend a permanent location for the academy.

Texas officials are pushing a site near Johnson Space Center to host the academy. Alabama, Colorado and Florida are among Texas’ competitors.

In a joint statement, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and U.S. Rep. Brian Babin, both of Texas, issued a statement backing the state’s bid for the academy. Cruz lives in Houston. Babbin lives in Woodville, about 55 miles south of Beaumont.

“America’s space program is built across the country, but Texas is where the pieces come together,” the lawmakers said. “We are ready to lead the next generation of space pioneers and look forward to showing why Texas is the right home for the U.S. Space Academy.”

The academy’s curriculum will include technical education, leadership development and public service components. Graduates will be set up for careers in the U.S. military, civil service, and aerospace sectors.

The Abbott-appointed team will work with the Texas Space Commission to prepare the state’s proposal for the academy.

In addition to Bonnen, team members with ties to Houston include:

  • Robert Ambrose, who grew up in Houston. He worked at Johnson Space Center before becoming associate director of the Texas A&M Space Institute.
  • Former NASA astronaut Nancy Curry-Gregg, director of the Texas A&M Space Institute. She earned a doctoral degree from the University of Houston and previously worked at Johnson Space Center.
  • Former NASA astronaut Jack Fischer, senior vice president of Houston-based Intuitive Machines. The company builds spacecraft, delivers payloads to the moon and launches satellites.

“Texas is the home of America’s human spaceflight program,” Abbott said in a release. “No state can match what Texas brings to this mission.”

“NASA’s Johnson Space Center, world-class universities, a premier commercial space industry, major military installations, and an unmatched aerospace workforce give Texas every asset the United States Space Academy requires,” the governor added.

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