Nike swooshes into Houston with new technically enhanced store

hi, tech

Get your kicks at this new techy Nike locale. Photo courtesy of Nike by CityCentre

Heads up, Houston sneakerheads. The world’s largest shoe brand is kicking it with a new, digitally enabled local outpost. Nike by CityCentre opened on March 17, promising a techy approach to buying those choice high tops, low courts, and Jays (that’s Air Jordans in sneakerspeak).

This new, 5,298 square-foot store (822 Town and Country Blvd. Suite 106) will pay particularly close attention to female shoppers. Women can enjoy one-on-one time with store athletes for product knowledge, bra fitting, and styling sessions, per a press release. Ladies can also find an assortment of expanded performance bras and leggings.

What makes the new shop techy? The CityCentre locale will offer Nike’s SNKRS PASS on the Nike SNKRS App, which uses GPS location to determine if a nearby Nike location has their preferred style available in their size.

Rather than calling, shoppers can link up with in-store staff using Swoosh Text, an SMS messaging service, to check inventory, get product recommendations, and more.

But, it’s all about the fit and sneaks, no? Nike by CityCentre will sport footwear such as Air Force 1s, Air Max 90’s, and more, a press release notes. Popular Jordan footwear styles and clothes for men and women will also satisfy those obsessed with the Swoosh.

Noting in a press release that the company is committed to the local community, Nike by CityCentre aims to be staffed by at least 50 percent Houston-area staff.

Photo courtesy of Nike by CityCentre

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

Amazon opening its Houston Tech Hub was one of this week's top stories. jetcityimage/Getty Images

5 most popular innovation stories in Houston this week

What's trending

Space City Month officially came to a close this week, as did our weekly features with space innovators. Meanwhile, Amazon opened the doors of its Tech Hub in Houston and a local travel app startup secured millions in funding.

Check out this week's top stories in Houston innovation.

Amazon opens newest Tech Hub in Houston and plans to hire

Amazon has invested over $10 billion into Texas since 2010. Photo via blog.aboutamazon.com

A year and a half after Houston was left off the list of 20 cities Amazon was pursuing for its second United States headquarters, the tech giant chose the Bayou City to house its 18th North American Tech Hub.

Amazon opened the doors of the hub on Friday, July 26, in 25,000-square-feet of space in CITYCENTRE, and the company has plans to hire to round out its team of 150 Amazon Web Services employees to work out of the hub.

"We're looking forward to becoming a bigger part of the Houston community," says Kris Satterthwaite, Gulf Coast enterprise sales leader of AWS, in a release. "Houston is a fantastic place to live and work, and has a strong local economy that we look forward to investing in and growing together." Continue reading the story.

5 Houston startups keeping Houston known as the Space City

Houston celebrated 50 years since the Apollo moon landing on July 20. Here are some startups that are going to be a part of the next 50 years of space tech in Houston. Photo via NASA.gov

This month, for the most part, has been looking back on the history Houston has as the Space City in honor of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing on July 20. While it's great to recognize the men and women who made this city the major player in space exploration that it is, there are still entrepreneurs today with space applications and experience that represent the future of the Space City.

From space tech to former NASA expert-founded companies, here are five companies keeping Houston's rep as the Space City. Continue reading the story.

4 Houston innovators to know this week

This four Houstonians saw a need in their industries and — rather than accepting the status quo — found a solution. Courtesy photos

The crux of innovation is identifying a problem and using your skills to ideate a solution. Each of these four innovators had their "aha" moments that led to their research and development moments, and now to where they are today. Continue reading the story.

Houston-based travel software company closes multimillion-dollar Series A and plans growth

Houston-based Grab makes it so you're waiting in one less line at the airport. Getty Images

When you fly, you can definitely rely on the fact that you're going to encounter two things: long airport walks and even longer airport lines. This Houston startup is ensuring that you have less of both of those.

Grab is a mobile software company that's designed an app where travelers can see what eateries they are going to pass in their airport visit and order their meal from their phone. The company has also expanded on their technology to include restaurant kiosks and mobile ordering from the table.

Grab was founded by Mark Bergsrud, who worked in senior leadership roles for almost 20 years at Continental Airlines and then United Airlines, following the merger. For Bergsrud, Grab feels like another major mobile game changer the industry experienced. Continue reading the story.

Houston entrepreneur has created a way to protect vehicles from devastating floods

After the floods from Hurricane Harvey totaled her car, Rahel Abraham wanted to find a solution. ClimaGuard/Facebook

Floodwaters from Hurricane Harvey seriously damaged about 600,000 vehicles in the Houston area, driving millions upon millions of dollars in auto insurance claims. Rahel Abraham's 2008 Infiniti G35 was among them.

Rather than merely moving on from the hurricane, though, Abraham — drawing upon her experience as an engineer in Houston's petrochemical industry — invented something that she foresaw shielding cars from the economic wrath of flooding.

Now, Abraham's brainchild forms the backbone of her Houston-based startup, ClimaGuard LLC. The next several weeks promise to be momentous for the business — Abraham will enter the 12-week DivInc business accelerator program in Austin in late August, and the company's first product is set to hit the market in early September. Continue reading the story.

Amazon has invested over $10 billion into Texas since 2010. Photo via blog.aboutamazon.com

Amazon opens newest Tech Hub in Houston and plans to hire

It's 'zon

The city of Houston, along with the Greater Houston Partnership, has worked to make Houston appealing to big business and tech giants, says Susan Davenport, senior vice president of economic development at the GHP.

"The expansion of Amazon's Houston workforce is indicative of a larger trend we are seeing of the major cloud players opting to locate their teams closer to their customers here in Houston," Davenport says in an email to InnovationMap. "Our energy, life sciences and manufacturing sectors are data-intensive, and this move makes a lot of sense. This is not the first, and I doubt it will be the last. A great portion of the digital tech industry's activity to this point has been focused on business-to-consumer, and is now shifting to business-to-business. Houston is largely a B2B city, so we stand to gain from this trend."

The Tech Hubs in North America have over 20,000 employees. Around 1,000 of those are from Amazon's Austin Tech Hub, which opened around four years ago and was recently announced to be in the process of expanding to include another 800 Austin employees, per the Wall Street Journal.

The company has invested $10 billion into Texas since 2010, according to the release, and Houston's diversity, universities, and quality of life were attractive to Amazon.

"Houston is such a culturally diverse city, with so many international companies based here," says Eddie Murray, global accounts lead, in a release. "We're excited to create great jobs and hire locally to boost the local economy while also giving back to the community through programs like Amazon Future Engineer."

The Amazon Future Engineer program is an initiative to help propel kids from under-served areas into careers in computer science. The program is in 35 Houston schools. Amazon also provided disaster relief aid after Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

"We have worked for the last couple of years to accelerate the growth of Houston's digital tech ecosystem, and we've got quite a bit of momentum with The Ion, TMC3, The Cannon, and so many others," Davenport adds. "The opening of Amazon's tech hub is another indicator of Houston's growing presence as an innovation-focused city."

From a free workspace competition at The Cannon to a tech company's big acquisition, here are some Houston innovation short stories. Courtesy of The Cannon

Houston tech co. makes acquisition, free coworking space contest launches, and more innovation news

Short stories

It's easy to miss some of Houston's innovation news — there's quite a lot coming out across town. From contests launching out of The Cannon to a Houston tech company making a major acquisition, here are some quick news stories you need to know.

Need more news rounded up for you? Subscribe to our daily newsletter that sends fresh stories straight to your inboxes every morning.

Onit Inc.makes acquisition

Houston-based contract management software company, Onit Inc., announced the acquisition of SimpleLegal, another legal services software company. The terms of the deal were not made public.

"Onit and SimpleLegal share both a passion for both disrupting the legal technology space and valuing product innovation," says Eric M. Elfman, Onit CEO and co-founder, in a release. "Our shared commitment to elevate legal operations technology is an asset for all of our customers – from rapidly growing startups with their first in-house counsel all the way to the largest, most complex organizations. Together, our goal is to help all legal operations professionals achieve operational excellence on their legal technology journey."

According to the release, all product, support and services will go on without any interruption for customers of both companies. Elfman will serve as the CEO of the merged organization, and Nathan Wenzel, who was the CEO and co-founder of SimpleLegal, has been named the general manager of SimpleLegal.

"Today, corporations spend more than $160 billion on their in-house legal teams. The combination of Onit and SimpleLegal is a game-changer for the legal market and the future of legal operations," says Wenzel in the release. "Our teams are uniquely equipped to help shape the technology that is powering legal departments worldwide. Together, we're looking forward to combining efforts and talent to build and bring to market the next generation of legal operations technology."

The Cannon and Insperity launch startup competition

The Cannon's 120,000-square-foot space is on track to open this summer. Courtesy of The Cannon

The Insperity Innovation Scholarship is back — this time the prize of 6 months of free office space inside The Cannon means the new, 120,000-square-foot space that's set to open in West Houston very soon.

"We are so excited that Insperity has chosen to bring back this year's Innovation Scholarship and will be rewarding another lucky Houston area startup with space in our brand new building," says The Cannon's founder and CEO, Lawson Gow, in a release. "As one of our original partners, we are looking forward to another year of working with Insperity to fulfill a mission that we share — providing Houston area startups with all the resources they need to succeed and establish Houston as an exceptional place to start your business." (Gow is the son of InnovationMap's CEO.)

The applications are open from now until June 5. The finalists will be notified on June 7. All of the finalists will pitch their company to a panel of judges on June 13. Companies based in the Houston area with 3 to 8 employees are eligible. Startups can apply here.

New-to-Houston coworking concept in CITYCENTRE breaks ground

FUSE Dynamic Workspace just announced its new 26,000-square-foot project coming to CITYCENTRE. Photo via workfuse.com

The construction process has officially started this month for Texas-based FUSE Dynamic Workspace's second location in CITYCENTRE. The complex will consist of 26,000 square feet of coworking space in two buildings connected by a bridge, and include an additional 5,000 square feet across four outdoor terraces. The space will have 95 private offices, a coworking café and lounge, dedicated desks, and conference space for up to 100 people.

FUSE strives to provide business professional amenities while also giving back to its community. The first location was in Prosper, Texas.

re:3D wins over $700,000 grant

After just opening a new factory and community space, re:3D was awarded a large grant. Courtesy of re:3D

Houston-based re:3D, which just opened its new 7,000-square-foot community space and factory, recently won a six-figure grant from the National Science Foundation.

The SBIR Phase II grant is for $749,111 to further commercialize the company's Gigabot and increase maker manufacturing through 3D printing with reclaimed plastic and direct drive pellet extrusion, according to an email sent to re:3D's community.

Griddy grows with new partnership

Griddy Energy enables customer pricing transparency. Photo via gogriddy.com

Griddy Energy has signed a strategic partnership with EDF Trading Ltd — a subsidiary of low-carbon energy group EDF Group. Through this partnership, EDF will provide support to Griddy as it expands its services.

"We're thrilled to announce this deal because our focus has always been saving Texans money by connecting them directly to the grid for wholesale electricity rates. This partnership means we can bring the power of wholesale to far more people," Greg Craig, CEO of Griddy, says in a release, "In 2018, Texans paid a combined $20 billion to REPs. Had Texans paid wholesale last year, they would have paid just $14 billion. That means Texans overpaid by a staggering $6 billion last year. Our goal is to get as much of that money back into the hands of Texans in the form of savings — and this partnership with EDF will allow us to do just that."

Griddy, which has a huge presence in Texas, provides customers wholesale electricity prices and promises to be open, honest, and transparent. Rather than charging inflated rates, the company only makes a profit from the $9.99 monthly membership fees. Everything else is at cost — no margins, hidden fees, or break fees. Read more about Griddy here.

LetsLaunch and The Cannon team up ahead of a live fundraising event

LetsLaunch, a Houston-based fundraising platform, has teamed up with The Cannon. Courtesy of LetsLaunch

Fundraising for your company could be stressful, but exciting. Now, imaging that process taking place at an event in a face-to-face capacity. LetsLaunch and The Cannon have teamed up to put on a live fundraising event — think of it like a online fundraising platform meets a cocktail party.

The event is set for June 15, and LetsLaunch is taking applications for potential participating startups until May 24. Apply here.

Spaces, an Amsterdam-based coworking space company that entered the Houston market with a lease in Kirby Grove announced in 2017, has two more Spaces locations planned for end of 2019. Courtesy of Midway

International workspace company announces 2 more Houston coworking spots

Space(s) city

An Amsterdam-based coworking company is doubling down on Houston with the announcement of over 120,000 square feet to deliver before the end of the year.

Spaces, which first entered the Houston market with the 2017 announcement of its Kirby Grove lease, will be opening new locations in CITYCENTRE and GreenStreet, according to a news release. All three properties are owned and operated by Midway Properties.

"Spaces is redefining the way work is done, providing a contemporary, social and creative environment with a real focus on community," says Michael Berretta, vice president of Network Development, for IWG, which owns Spaces, in the release. "Houston is a vibrant city with a global business hub and an entrepreneurial attitude. Spaces gives Houston's talent pool an inspiring place to work and meet with other people who believe in the power of collaboration to drive a business forward."

Spaces has over 3,300 flexible workspace locations across the world. There are three locations open in Texas — the other two being in the Dallas area. In addition to the two expected Midway properties, a third location in Two Post Oak Central is expected to deliver in 2019, the Houston Business Journal reports.

The GreenStreet location in downtown Houston will have 63,000 square feet of workspace in repurposed retail space. Among the features promised are open space, smaller team rooms, private offices, phone booths, and a 3,000-square foot rooftop patio.

The news of the workspace follows closely behind an international accelerator program, MassChallenge, announced its Houston program in GreenStreet.

The CITYCENTRE workspace will take up almost 61,000 square feet of CITYCENTRE One and touts similar features and flexible space. Both locations also boast of existing shopping, dining, and entertainment perks in the centers.

"Spaces fits perfectly in GreenStreet, a mixed-use district that is being redeveloped as the new model of urban lifestyle,"sys Chris Seckinger, vice president and investment manager for Midway, in the release. "And CITYCENTRE gives Spaces an ideal platform to serve businesses, whether they are collaborating globally or locally, in the midst of West Houston's concentration of energy, technology and engineering firms."

Earlier this month, a report found that over the past two and a half years, Houston's coworking space has only grown marginally. With the announcement of Spaces' expansion — as well as The Cannon and The Ion projects — expected to deliver over the next two years, Houston stands to make up for lost times, so to speak.

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Rice University team develops eco-friendly method to destroy 'forever chemicals' in water

clean water research

Rice University researchers have teamed up with South Korean scientists to develop the first eco-friendly technology that captures and destroys toxic “forever chemicals,” or PFAS, in water.

PFAS have been linked to immune system disruption, certain cancers, liver damage and reproductive disorders. They can be found in water, soil and air, as well as in products like Teflon pans, waterproof clothing and food packaging. They do not degrade easily and are difficult to remove.

Thus far, PFAS cleanup methods have relied on adsorption, in which molecules cling to materials like activated carbon or ion-exchange resins. But these methods tend to have limited capacity, low efficiency, slow performance and can create additional waste.

The Rice-led study, published in the journal Advanced Materials, centered on a layered double hydroxide (LDH) material made from copper and aluminum that could rapidly capture PFAS and be used to destroy the chemicals.

The study was led by Rice professor Youngkun Chung, a postdoctoral fellow under the mentorship of Michael S. Wong. It was conducted in collaboration with Seoktae Kang, professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, and Keon-Ham Kim, professor at Pukyung National University, who first discovered the LDH material.

The team evaluated the LDH material in river water, tap water and wastewater. And, according to Rice, that material’s unique copper-aluminum layers and charge imbalances created an ideal binding environment to capture PFAS molecules.

“To my astonishment, this LDH compound captured PFAS more than 1,000 times better than other materials,” Chung, lead author of the study and now a fellow at Rice’s WaTER (Water Technologies, Entrepreneurship and Research) Institute and Sustainability Institute, said in a news release. “It also worked incredibly fast, removing large amounts of PFAS within minutes, about 100 times faster than commercial carbon filters.”

Next, Chung, along with Rice professors Pedro Alvarez and James Tour, worked to develop an eco-friendly, sustainable method of thermally decomposing the PFAS captured on the LDH material. They heated saturated material with calcium carbonate, which eliminated more than half of the trapped PFAS without releasing toxic by-products.

The team believes the study’s results could potentially have large-scale applications in industrial cleanups and municipal water treatments.

“We are excited by the potential of this one-of-a-kind LDH-based technology to transform how PFAS-contaminated water sources are treated in the near future,” Wong added in the news release. “It’s the result of an extraordinary international collaboration and the creativity of young researchers.”

Axiom Space announces new CEO amid strategic leadership change

new leader

Six months after promoting Tejpaul Bhatia from chief revenue officer to CEO, commercial space infrastructure and human spaceflight services provider Axiom Space has replaced him.

On Oct. 15, Houston-based Axiom announced Jonathan Cirtain has succeeded Bhatia as CEO. Bhatia joined Axiom in 2021. Cirtain remains the company’s president, a role he assumed in June, according to his LinkedIn profile.

In a news release, Axiom said Cirtain’s appointment as CEO is a “strategic leadership change” aimed at advancing the company’s development of space infrastructure.

Axiom hired Cirtain as president in June, according to his LinkedIn profile. The company didn’t publicly announce that move.

Kam Ghaffarian, co-founder and executive chairman of Axiom, said Cirtain’s “proven track record of leadership and commitment to excellence align perfectly with our mission of building era-defining space infrastructure that will drive exploration and fuel the global space economy.”

Aside from praising Cirtain, Ghaffarian expressed his “sincere gratitude” for Bhatia’s work at Axiom, including his leadership as CEO during “a significant transition period.”

Bhatia was promoted to CEO in April after helping Axiom gain more than $1 billion in contracts, Space News reported. He succeeded Ghaffarian as CEO. Axiom didn’t indicate whether Bhatia quit or was terminated.

Cirtain, an astrophysicist, was a senior executive at BWX Technologies, a supplier of nuclear components and fuel, for eight years before joining Axiom. Earlier, Cirtain spent nearly nine years in various roles at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He previously co-founded a machine learning company specializing in Earth observation.

“Axiom Space is pioneering the commercialization of low-Earth orbit infrastructure while accelerating advancements in human spaceflight technologies,” Cirtain said. “I look forward to continuing our team’s important work of driving innovation to support expanded access to space and off-planet capabilities that will underpin the future of space exploration.”

Among other projects, Axiom is developing the world’s first commercial space station, creating next-generation spacesuits for astronauts and sending astronauts on low-Earth orbit missions.

Houston billionaire benefactors will donate almost entire fortune to charity

Giving Back

Houston billionaires Rich and Nancy Kinder plan to donate an astounding 95% of their multi-billion-dollar wealth to charities, they told ABC13's Melanie Lawson.

The news comes as the Kinder Foundation announced an $18.5 million expansion project for Emancipation Park in the heart of Third Ward. That historic park was founded by slaves in 1872.

The Kinders are one of the wealthiest couples in the nation, worth $11.4 billion, according to Forbes. You've certainly seen the Kinder name on buildings and facilities around the city of Houston.

The Kinders are also among the most generous, giving away hundreds of millions to Houston institutions and charities. Their plan is to give away almost all of their wealth, or more than $10 billion.

Rich Kinder helped build oil and gas pipeline giant Kinder Morgan, but he stepped down as CEO more than a decade ago for a what he calls a bigger cause.

"Well, I think we'd all like to leave the world a little better place than we found it," he said. "And we just felt early on that the right thing to do was to try to give most or all of that away. So that's what we plan to do during our lifetime and after our death."

They found kindred spirits as one of the first couples to sign The Giving Pledge, established by billionaires Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.

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Continue reading the full story, with video, on ABC13.com.

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