As we overcome the COVID crisis, and look to rebuild our economy and overcome future challenges, we need to learn from this experience and refuse to go back to the bad old days of red tape and stale technology. Photo via Getty Images

If you've logged onto a government website recently, you know that dealing with creaking, outdated government technology is about as much fun as a trip to the DMV. Held back by byzantine procurement rules, management-by-committee, and an aggressive commitment to decades-old UX principles, government websites and other tech tools are routinely confusing, horrible to use, and deeply inefficient.

Now, though, that could finally be changing. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us all to rethink our relationships with the technologies we use, from Zoom calls to e-commerce services. Increasingly, government bodies are finding themselves forced to move faster, adopt more up-to-date technologies, and work with private-sector partners to meet new challenges and quickly bring their services into the 21st century.

Getting an education

One of the most dramatic examples comes in the realm of education. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 93 percent of school-age children have engaged in distance learning since the pandemic began, and four fifths of them relied on digital tech to take the place of classroom resources. But with access to digital tech at home strongly correlated to household income, governments and education departments have had to move quickly to ensure every child has access to laptops and web connections.

Not everyone is a fan of remote learning, and as a parent myself, I know how hard it can be to have kids at home. But one thing we should all be able to agree on is that if we're going to rely on digital learning, then we need to make sure it's available to everyone, including those families that don't have access to reliable computers and WiFi connections at home.

Achieving that rapidly and at scale has required remarkable flexibility and creativity from policymakers at all levels. Those that have succeeded have done so by brushing aside the red tape that has ensnared previous government tech initiatives, and instead working with private-sector partners to rapidly implement the solutions that are needed.

Lessons from Texas

Here in Texas, for instance, one in six public school students lacked access to high-speed internet connections at the start of the pandemic, and 30% lacked access to laptops or other learning devices. To speed the transition to remote learning, Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas Education Agency (TEA) launched Operation Connectivity — a $400 million campaign to connect 5.5 million Texas public school students with a computer device and reliable internet connection. To date 4 million devices have been purchased and are being distributed to kids, opening doors to greater educational and economic opportunities. Further work is in progress to remove other connectivity barriers like slow connection speeds in rural areas to help students and all Texans.

Rolling out such an ambitious project to our state's 1,200 or so school districts could have been a disaster. After all, many government IT projects grind along for months or years without delivering the desired results — often at huge cost to taxpayers. But Operation Connectivity has been different because it's grounded in a true partnership between the government and private-sector players.

Facing urgent deadlines, government leaders turned to Gaby Rowe, former CEO of the Ion tech hub, to spearhead the project. As a tech innovator, Rowe brought entrepreneurial energy and a real understanding of the power of public-private partnerships, and drove Operation Connectivity from the blueprint to execution in a matter of weeks. Tech giants including Microsoft, SAP, and Hubspot also quickly joined the effort, helping to deliver cost-effective connectivity and hardware solutions to ensure that every kid in our state could get the education they deserve. Since then, Operation Connectivity has distributed over a million devices, including laptops and wireless hotspots, to families in need, with costs split between the state and individual districts.

Private sector edge

To get a sense of how private-sector knowhow can spur government tech transformation, consider my own company, Digital Glyde. As part of the Operation Connectivity effort, we were asked to help design and build the back-end software and planning infrastructure needed to coordinate effectively with hundreds of school district officials scattered all across our state.

Ordinarily, that kind of effort would require a drawn-out process of consultation, committee-work, and red tape. But facing an urgent need to help our state's children, we were given the freedom to move quickly, and were able to implement a viable system within just a few days.

By leveraging cutting-edge data-extraction and image-processing tools, we helped Operation Connectivity to automatically process invoices and match tech costs to available COVID relief funding in record time. We achieved 95% accuracy within three weeks of deployment to ensure school districts quickly received reimbursements for the hardware they were purchasing on behalf of their schoolchildren.

Building on success

Operation Connectivity is just one example of the ways in which government actors have embraced tech and leveraged private-sector assistance to chart their way through the COVID crisis. From contact-tracing programs to vaccine distribution programs, we're seeing governments taking a far more pragmatic and partnership-driven approach to technology.

Of course, not every experiment goes to plan. In Florida, government agencies decided to use web tools to manage vaccination appointments — but implemented that idea using a commercial website built to handle birthday party e-vites. Unsurprisingly, the results were chaotic, with users having to scramble to grab appointments as they were posted to the site, and seniors struggling to wrap their head around a website designed for young parents.

Such stories are a reminder that governments can't solve big problems simply by grabbing at whatever tech tools are nearest to hand. It's vital to find the right solutions, and to work with partners who understand the complexity and constraints that come with delivering public-sector services at scale.

As we overcome the COVID crisis, and look to rebuild our economy and overcome future challenges, we need to learn from this experience and refuse to go back to the bad old days of red tape and stale technology. In recent months, we've shown what can be done when we pull together, and combine real governmental leadership with private-sector innovation and efficiency. We'll need much more of this kind of teamwork and tech-enabled creativity in the months and years to come.

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Varun Garg is the founder and CEO of Houston-based Digital Glyde

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Innovative Houston chemicals manufacturing platform provider raises $40M series A

money moves

Houston-based Mstack, whose platform helps manufacturers source specialty chemicals, has raised $40 million in a series A funding round.

Lightspeed Venture Partners and Alpha Wave Incubation led the round, which includes a debt facility from HSBC Innovation Banking and money from several angel investors.

In a news release, Mstack says the infusion of cash will enable it to “double down on its mission to disrupt a historically flawed supply chain for specialty chemicals.”

This “doubling down” will include expansion of Mstack’s footprint in the U.S., Middle East, Latin America, and Asia.

“Geopolitical dynamics pose risks for supply chain disruptions in the global specialty chemicals market,” Bejul Somaia, a partner at Lightspeed, says in a news release.

“With demand for these chemicals growing rapidly, there is a need to increase R&D investments and unlock new pockets of supply,” he adds. “As the first institutional investor in Mstack, we believe that the company has tremendous potential to lead this transformation.”

Mstack, founded in 2022, currently serves four business sectors: oil and gas, coatings, water treatment, and home and personal care. The funding will enable it to move into industry segments such as agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals.

The Mstack platform gives buyers a one-stop shop for sourcing, testing, shipping, delivering, and tracking specialty chemicals.

“This new funding affirms investor confidence in our vision and technology to transform global markets. It enables us to expand geographically and intensify our R&D efforts,” Mstack founder Shreyans Chopra says.

Here's how Houston ranks on annual list of greenest cities in the US

room for improvement

Bad news, Houston. The Bayou City is the third worst metro when it comes to the country's greenest cities.

According to WalletHub's recently released Greenest Cities in America report, Houston is No. 98 out of 100 of the largest cities that were ranked in the study, which was based on information from the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, The Trust for Public Land, U.S. Department of Energy - The Alternative Fuels Data Center, and more.

“There are plenty of things that individuals can do to adopt a green lifestyle, from recycling to sharing rides to installing solar panels on their homes. However, living in one of the greenest cities can make it even easier to care for the environment, due to sustainable laws and policies, access to locally-grown produce and infrastructure that allows residents to use vehicles less often," says Chip Lupo, WalletHub Analyst. "The greenest cities also are better for your health due to superior air and water quality.”

Houston scored 36.88 points out of 100, and comes in dead last on the environment ranking. Here's how the city performs when it comes to the other metrics:

  • No. 87 for transportation
  • No. 52 for energy sources
  • No. 61 for lifestyle and policy
  • No. 91 for greenhouse-gas emissions per capita
  • No. 30 for percent of green space
  • No. 86 for median air quality index
  • No. 97 for annual excess fuel consumption
  • No. 56 for percent of commuters who drive
  • No. 39 for walk score
  • No. 33 for farmers markets per capita

The big winners on the report are mostly on the West Coast. Of the top 10, six cities are from California. These are the greenest cities, per the report:

  1. San Diego, California
  2. Washington, D.C.
  3. Honolulu, Hawaii
  4. San Francisco, California
  5. San Jose, California
  6. Seattle, Washington
  7. Oakland, California
  8. Portland, Oregon
  9. Fremont, California
  10. Irvine, California
Texas isn't seen on the list until Austin, which ranked No. 26. The rest of the major Lone Star State major metros include San Antonio at No. 44, Fort Worth at No. 76, and Dallas at No. 81.While this report is pretty damning, there's not a general consensus that all hope is lost for Houston when it comes to being green. Last year, the city was ranked as having the lowest carbon footprint, based on a report from Park Sleep Fly.

However, WalletHub's report has pretty consistently ranked Houston low on the list. Last year, Houston was slightly higher up at No. 95. In 2022 and 2021, the city claimed the No. 93 spot.

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This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

Editor's note: Every week, I introduce you to a handful of Houston innovators to know recently making headlines with news of innovative technology, investment activity, and more. This week's batch includes an alternative materials founder, a Houston ecosystem builder, and the city's richest billionaire.

Zimri T. Hinshaw, founder and CEO of Rheom Materials

Zimri T. Hinshaw, founder and CEO of Rheom Materials, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast. Photo courtesy of Rheom

At first, Zimri T. Hinshaw just wanted to design a sustainable, vegan jacket inspired by bikers he saw in Tokyo. Now, he's running a bio-based materials company with two product lines and is ready to disrupt the fashion and automotive industries.

Hinshaw founded Rheom Materials (née Bucha Bio) in 2020, but a lot has changed since then. He moved the company from New York to Houston, built out a facility in Houston's East End Maker Hub, and rebranded to reflect the company's newest phase and extended product lines, deriving from dozens of different ingredients, including algae, seaweed, corn, other fruits and vegetables, and more.

"As a company, we pivoted our technology from growing kombucha sheets to grinding up bacteria nanocellulose from kombucha into our products and then we moved away from that entirely," Hinshaw says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "Today, we're designing different materials that are more sustainable, and the inputs are varied." Read more.

Joey Sanchez, founder of Cup of Joey

Joey Sanchez's Cup of Joey has expanded across Houston to help make valuable connections to Houston entrepreneurs. Photo via LinkedIn

What is your purpose in life? One Houstonian is asking that question of his fellow entrepreneurs all across town.

Joey Sanchez founded Cup of Joey, a weekly meetup opportunity for innovators, business leaders, and the whole Houston community. The events are a place not only to share a cup of coffee but also their very own mission in life.

It all started in 2021 at the Houston Tech Rodeo, an initiative from Houston Exponential, where Sanchez worked as a director of corporate engagement. Texas had just opened social distancing in public events since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Sanchez was finding ways to reconnect the Houston community.

‘We thought what better way than over a cup of coffee?” Since then, Sanchez has connected thousands of people based on purpose every Friday for the past three and a half years. Read more.

Tilman Fertitta, chairman, CEO, and owner of Landry's Inc.

Tilman Fertitta's net worth is estimated at over $10 billion. Photo by J. Thomas Ford

A dozen of Houston's illustrious billionaires have made the cut on the new Forbes 400, a list of the 400 richest people in the United States for 2024.

Houston hospitality king and Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta is the 12th richest Texan and the 99th richest person in the United States, according to the new Forbes 400list, released October 1.

Forbes estimates Fertitta's net worth in 2024 as $10.1 billion, which has steadily climbed from his 2023 net worth of $8.1 billion. Fertitta, 67, purchased the Houston Rockets in October 2017 for $2.2 billion. The billionaire also owns Texas-based hospitality and entertainment corporation Landry's. In 2019, Fertitta embarked on a new venture as an author. Read more.