Kevin Knobloch will lead Greentown Labs as CEO. Photo via LinkedIn

The largest climatetech incubator in North America has named an Obama Administration appointee as its next CEO.

Kevin Knobloch, who served as chief of staff of the United States Department of Energy in President Barack Obama’s second term, will be CEO of Greentown Labs, effective September 5. In his role, Knobloch will oversee both Greentown locations in Houston and Somerville, Massachusetts, outside of Boston.

“Kevin has a proven and impressive track record of growing, operationalizing, and leading a dynamic mix of organizations at different stages and in various industries, all of which have aligned with his unwavering commitment to addressing the climate crisis,” Greentown Labs Board Chair Dawn James says in a news release. “On behalf of the entire Board of Directors, I am thrilled to welcome Kevin as our next CEO. We are excited for what is to come under Kevin’s leadership and look forward to the positive impact he will undoubtedly have on our team, our startup community, and the ecosystem at large.”

With 30 years of experience across sectors, Knobloch most recently served as president of Knobloch Energy, an independent advisory and consulting firm. He also served as acting executive director of the National Offshore Wind Research & Development Consortium from June through December 2022. From 2018 to 2020, Knobloch was president of New York OceanGrid LLC, where he led Anbaric’s efforts to develop offshore wind transmission in New York.

“I’m honored and thrilled to have the opportunity to once again pass the leadership baton,” Greentown Co-Founder Jason Hanna says, who has been serving as interim CEO. “Especially so given Kevin’s incredible record of climate leadership. I’m excited for the future of this organization and the impact he can make as Greentown enters the second decade of its climate mission.”

The appointment follows an executive search that began after Greentown's previous CEO Emily Reichert announced she was stepping down in December.

“I’m delighted to be asked by Greentown Labs’ Board of Directors to be the next leader of this highly effective organization—and very excited to get to work,” Knobloch says in a statement. “I’ve long admired the critical role Greentown plays in supporting the growth and impact of early-stage climate and energy transition technology companies, as well as the impressive efforts by former longtime CEO Emily Reichert and the talented Board and staff to build Greentown into a national powerhouse and model for other incubators around the world. The climate crisis demands that we accelerate our collective pace of deployment and I look forward to collaborating with our startups, staff, and partners to support that acceleration.”

The announcement comes on the heels of Greentown naming its inaugural Houston general manager. Timmeko Moore Love was named to that new position last week.

Greentown Houston names Timmeko Moore Love as inaugural general manager. Photo courtesy of Greentown

Houston climatetech hub names new leader

taking charge

Greentown Houston has a new leader at its helm.

The climatetech incubator, dual located in Houston and Somerville, Massachusetts, has named Timmeko Moore Love as Houston general manager and senior vice president of Greentown Labs. She'll lead Greentown Houston’s team and business operations, while growing the location's membership.

“We are thrilled to have Timmeko joining our leadership team,” says Jason Hanna, co-founder and interim CEO of Greentown Labs, in a news release. “Her wealth of experience will be instrumental in helping Greentown Houston maximize its impact through operational excellence, while inspiring and accelerating climate entrepreneurship from the energy capital of the world.”

Love has 20 years of experience in innovation management, per the news release, and was the first Black woman at a Fortune 500 to lead a venture capital program. In that role, which was at The Woodlands-based Entergy Corp., she was named to the 2020 Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist. Love also oversaw corporate ventures at Mayo Clinic and Best Buy Capital.

“Greentown Labs is committed to ensuring founders’ success and is an agent of action in the fight against climate change,” says Love in the release. “I am excited to continue my service to the Greater Houston climate innovation ecosystem through this esteemed platform, and partner internally and externally to evolve and expand our services and programs.”

Juliana Garaizar, who originally joined Greentown as launch director ahead of the Houston opening in 2021, previously oversaw the day-to-day operations of Greentown Houston. In January, she was promoted from vice president of innovation to chief development and investment officer. She shared with InnovationMap that Greentown was looking to hire its first Houston manager.

"Now that we are more than 80 members, we need more internal coordination," she told InnovationMap at the time. "Considering that the goal for Greentown is to grow to more locations, there's going to be more coordination and, I'd say, more autonomy for the Houston campus."

Greentown Labs is currently undergoing a search for its next CEO to succeed Emily Reichert, who stepped down in December.

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This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

Juliana Garaizar is now the chief development and investment officer at Greentown Labs, as well as continuing to be head of the Houston incubator. Image courtesy of Greentown

Climatetech incubator announces C-suite promotion, Houston jobs, and nonprofit transition

greentown updates

The new year has brought some big news from Greentown Labs.

The Somerville, Massachusetts-based climatetech incubator with its second location at Greentown Houston named a new member to its C-suite, is seeking new Houston team members, and is in the process of transitioning into a nonprofit.

Juliana Garaizar, who originally joined Greentown as launch director ahead of the Houston opening in 2021, has been promoted from vice president of innovation to chief development and investment officer.

"I'm refocusing on the Greentown Labs level in a development role, which means fundraising for both locations and potentially new ones," Garaizar tells InnovationMap. "My role is not only development, but also investment. That's something I'm very glad to be pursuing with my investment hat. Access to capital is key for all our members, and I'm going to be in charge of refining and upgrading our investment program."

While she will also maintain her role as head of the Houston incubator, Greentown Houston is also hiring a general manager position to oversee day-to-day and internal operations of the hub. Garaizar says this role will take some of the internal-facing responsibilities off of her plate.

"Now that we are more than 80 members, we need more internal coordination," she explains. "Considering that the goal for Greentown is to grow to more locations, there's going to be more coordination and, I'd say, more autonomy for the Houston campus."

The promotion follows a recent announcement that Emily Reichert, who served as CEO for the company for a decade, has stepped back to become CEO emeritus. Greentown is searching for its next leader and CFO Kevin Taylor is currently serving as interim CEO. Garaizar says the transition is representative of Greentown's future as it expands to a larger organization.

"Emily's transition was planned — but, of course, in stealth mode," Garaizar says, adding that Reichert is assisting in the transition process. "She thinks scaling is a different animal from putting (Greentown) together, which she did really beautifully."

Garaizar says her new role comes alongside Greentown's return to nonprofit status. She tells InnovationMap that the organization originally was founded as a nonprofit, but converted to a for-profit in order to receive a loan at its first location. Now, with the mission focus Greentown has and the opportunities for grants and funding, it's time to convert back to a nonprofit, Garaizar says.

"When we started fundraising for Houston, everyone was asking why we weren't a nonprofit. That opened the discussion again," she says. "The past year we have been going through that process. ...I think it's going to open the door to a lot more collaboration and potential grants."

Greentown is continuing to grow its team ahead of planned expansion. The organization hasn't yet announced another location — Garaizar says the primary focus is filling the CEO position first. In Houston, the hub is also looking for an events manager to ensure the incubator is providing key programming for its members, as well as the Houston innovation community as a whole.

Rice University and Houston Methodist have teamed up to fund life science research — and more Houston innovation news you need to know. Image courtesy of Rice

Houston health startups make most promising list, clean energy co. wins award, and more news

short stories

Houston startup news has still been full speed ahead, despite the year coming to a close, and there might be some headlines you may have missed.

In this roundup of short stories within Houston startups and tech, a climatetech leader steps down, two digital health companies have been recognized internationally, and more.

Two Houston startups land on most-promising health tech list

Houston has some representation on this year's Digital Health 150. Image via CB Insights

CB Insights released The Digital Health 150, an annual ranking of the 150 most promising digital health startups in the world, last week and two Houston companies made the cut. Houston-based companies Koda Health and Starling Medical were two of the eight Texas startups on the list.

Founded in 2020, Koda Health is a B2B Enterprise SaaS solution that guides patients through the process of proactive healthcare planning and document authentication. The company has been expanding its service across the country this year following a seed round of funding in February.

"Each year, 150 winners are selected from a pool of over 13,000 companies," Koda's CEO and Co-Founder Tatiana Fofanova tells InnovationMap. "Honorees have quickly become industry titans and household names, so we were honored — and frankly, surprised! — to be recognized in this year's group of honorees.

"I've personally taken inspiration from the Digital Health 150 for years now ± these are people and companies we've emulated and aspired to — so to see the Koda Health logo on there was incredibly affirming," she continues.

Starling Medical is using AI and telehealth enabled medical devices to enable millions with bladder dysfunctions to be able to urinate safely and conveniently again. The company has been named most promising by the Rice Alliance as well, and a top 10 company by MassChallenge.

Optellum, a United Kingdom-based company focused on lung cancer diagnostics, also made the list. They have their United States-based operations in Houston. Additionally, seven startups on the list — Babyscripts, Cerebriu, Iterative Health, Kintsugi, Mindtrace, Redox, and Lightbeam — have ties to TMC.

This is the fourth annual Digital Health 150, and this new cohort has already raised approximately $5.6 billion in aggregate funding across 378 deals since 2017, according to CB Insights.

Houston startup snags win at the 'Oscars' of energy industry

Syzygy Plasmonics was recognized for being an outstanding energy transition company. Photo via LinkedIn

At the 24th annual Platts Global Energy Awards gala, S&P Global Commodity Insights honored industry excellence across 19 categories. Described as the "Oscars" of energy, the program "recognizes corporate and individual innovation, leadership, and performance in the energy and petrochemicals industry," according to a news release.

"We are proud to recognize the leadership and innovation of this year's finalists and winners of the Platts Global Energy Awards," says Saugata Saha, president of S&P Global Commodity Insights, in the release. "These companies have demonstrated a commitment to excellence while serving customers and enabling a balanced energy transition, a key area of focus for the industry and our teams at S&P Global Commodity Insights."

Houston-based alternative energy company, Syzygy Plasmonics, took home a win for the "Energy Transition Technology of the Year Award." Syzygy, which recently raised a $76 million series C round, has a technology that harnesses the power of light to energize chemical reactions — rather than the traditional process that is fueled by heat. The Syzygy approach reduces feedstock waste and produces fewer emissions when powered by renewable electricity.

Greentown Labs CEO steps down

In her capacity as Greentown Labs CEO, Emily Reichert cut the ribbon on Greentown Houston over a year and a half ago. Photo by Lee Bond/Greentown Labs

The leader of Somerville, Massachusetts-based Greentown Labs, which has its only other location in Houston, has stepped down after a decade at the helm of the climatetech incubator.

In an email to the Greentown Labs community, Emily Reichert confirmed that she has stepped down as CEO and will remain involved as "CEO Emeritus." The organization's CFO, Kevin Taylor, has picked up more leadership responsibilities in the interim.

"As I hand the baton off to the next leader of Greentown Labs, I’m confident in our community’s ability to continue making an enormous impact deploying climatetech solutions and our team’s ability to continue growing Greentown to be an ever-more-impactful space for climatetech entrepreneurs and collaborators," Reichert says in the email.

Rice backs new research collaborations with Houston Methodist

Rice University and Houston Methodist have again teamed up to support life science research. Photo via rice.edu

Two Houston organizations — Rice University and the Houston Methodist Academic Institute — have created a seed grant program and awarded grants for research in robotics, imaging, cardiovascular bioengineering, and more. Twenty multi-year projects will be supported by both Houston Methodist and Rice, according to a news release.

It's the third collaborative program between the two organizations in less than two years.

“Our collaborations with Houston Methodist will impact human health and wellness, foster new research opportunities and advance our understanding of diseases," says Rice Provost Amy Dittmar in a news release.

The projects within the nursing category have not been announced, but the awards for the other categories have been named online.

Greentown Labs announced its latest accelerator program — this one is focused on DEI in clean energy innovation. Photo via GreentownLabs.com

Greentown Houston announces co-located accelerator for energy innovators of color

browning the green space

Greentown Labs has announced its latest accelerator program that will be co-located in both its Houston and Boston-area spaces.

In partnership with Browning the Green Space, Greentown Labs has officially launched the Advancing Climatetech and Clean Energy Leaders Program, or ACCEL, and is seeking applications from climatetech entrepreneurs who identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Color.

The startups accepted into the year-long program will receive a curated curriculum, incubation at one of the Greentown locations, and mentorship from its large network of energy professionals. Each participant will also receive a non-dilutive $25,000 grant. Applications for ACCEL are open now and are due by Dec. 23

“We need all hands on deck to solve the climate crisis and foster a just energy transition,” says Emily Reichert, CEO of Greentown Labs, in a news release. “We are proud to partner with Browning the Green Space on this important program, and are eager to support more underrepresented founders through ACCEL to help build a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable climatetech industry.”

BGS is a nonprofit that is focused on making clean energy other climate-related fields more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. The organization is headquartered in Boston.

“We are excited to work in partnership with Greentown Labs to build critical support infrastructure for entrepreneurs of color and accelerate the equitable development and distribution of climate solutions across all communities,” says Kerry Bowie, executive director and president of Browning the Green Space, in the release. “ACCEL will help us move closer to where we all should be collectively, and create the opportunity to change the face of clean energy as we know it.”

The new program is also supported the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, a state economic development agency dedicated to accelerating the growth of the clean energy sector across the Commonwealth, and then Boston-based Barr Foundation, a foundation with a regional focus, working in partnership with partners to elevate the arts, advance solutions for climate change, and connect all students to success in high school and beyond, per the news please.

“The Barr Foundation’s climate program has made a commitment to centering racial equity in the energy transition,” says Kathryn Wright, senior program officer of Clean Energy at The Barr Foundation, in the release. “We are excited to support this crucial opportunity to provide education and mentorship for underrepresented climate entrepreneurs in our region. We look forward to seeing the impact of the ACCEL program in the coming years.”

The curriculum for ACCEL will be led by Hadley, Massachusetts-based VentureWell, a nonprofit that funds and trains innovators to create successful, socially beneficial businesses. Applicants may be based anywhere in the world, but will be expected to attend in-person elements of the program at either Greentown Boston or Greentown Houston.

Greentown Houston's Juliana Garaizar and Emily Reichert look back on the climatetech incubator's first year. Photos via greentownlabs.com

How Greentown Houston accelerated the local energy transition in its inaugural year

q&a

This Thursday, Greentown Houston officially celebrates the completion of its first year in town, as well as the impact its made in just the 365 days since its grand opening.

Emily Reichert, CEO of Greentown Labs, officially cut the ribbon on the organization's first location outside of the Boston area last Earth Day. Reichert, along with Juliana Garaizar, head of the Houston incubator and vice president of innovation, joined InnovationMap for a Q&A looking back on this past year — including what surprised them most and where members are moving in from.

Greentown Houston's anniversary event is Thursday, April 21, from 1 to 7 pm, at Greentown Houston (4200 San Jacinto St.) or livestreaming online. Click here to learn more.

InnovationMap: Looking back on the first year of Greentown Houston, what was the thing that most surprised you about the process and the community you created here?

Juliana Garaizar: What really surprised me the most was the eagerness to be a part of Greentown. We were very surprised by the pandemic — it caught us in, in the middle of fundraising and we thought things were gonna slow down and actually it became sort of a of a blessing in disguise for the community here in Houston. The Boston community had to go virtual, and then when they did, we realized that we were much more connected to the Boston team, but also why can't we offer the same services to the Houston community since we didn't have a building yet anyway. That created a huge opportunity to convene a community even before our building. We had these early access members and when we finally opened our building, they all converted to in-person members because they had already felt what the community could bring. In Boston, they took a little longer to fill in the space at opening, but we came in at grand opening with our inaugural member list in Houston — all of them super eager to join us. That conversion happened so fast happened because of the virtual aspect of COVID.

Emily Reichert: For me, there were really three things that were surprising. Throughout the whole process of building the momentum towards Greentown Houston and from the very first meetings I had with the GHP and potential supporters of a future Greentown Labs, there was this warmth of welcome. I can't compare it to anything else. Houston just really embraced this opportunity, embraced Greentown labs, and embraced our team — as well as really embracing having a climate tech incubator located in what has traditionally been called the oil and gas capital of the world. I just wanna note that that is very meaningful and it just shows that when Houston gets behind something, Houstonians go all the way they are committed and they take action. And we just felt that from the very beginning,

Second, I think that the momentum of the energy transition itself surprised us, but also felt it felt to us like we were riding a wave that wasn't just about Greentown Houston. It was about all of these different businesses, business leaders civic leaders, and just general citizenry in Houston understanding that the future of energy is different than the past of energy. And that, that was something that was going to need to happen more quickly than folks had anticipated. And again, I feel like Houstonians are leaning into it and thinking about, "well, if we've been the energy capital of the world, can we now be the energy transition capital of the world and how do we do that?" The speed with which this transition is happening is just incredible. And, increasingly in the circles that I move in outside of Houston, people know about it. It's changing the outside perspective as well. That's been really exciting to see.

Finally, the amount of talent that exists in the energy industry and in general in Houston and in the local universities that can be deployed and is interested in being deployed in climate tech and addressing climate change and the energy transition — it's really remarkable. Whenever we have a job posting out there for Greentown Houston, we are getting a lot of applicants. And now when we're going to universities to engage with students around — whether they're interested in building a startup that could address a challenge in the energy transition — it's just overwhelming the interest, the excitement, and the level of talent that I think is going to be available to apply to this energy transition that Houston can absolutely lead.

IM: Greentown Houston has not only attracted Houston-based companies, but also companies outside of Houston that want to be able to take advantage of Greentown Labs and the support there. You have both virtual and in-person membership options. Tell me a little bit about how that came to be.

JG: This was something also that the pandemic exacerbatedAgain, if you compare Boston to Houston — Boston is much more difficult to find prototyping lab space and wet labs. I would say that the cost of space is much higher there than in Houston. You there's plenty of space available for coworking, for prototyping, but the connection services to the whole ecosystem, to investors, to corporate partners, to universities to mentors — all that is key for our startups. And that means that space takes a second place. That's what we've seen. Member companies from Austin join Greentown Houston because they are connecting to a community that is more like hard tech driven and less software driven than in Austin. They wanna connect to the customers and the pilots, right? Even some of our Boston companies have moved or at least established a presence in Houston. There's also the diversity aspect that Houston is the most diverse city in the U,S. There are plenty of companies from Latin America coming over and choosing Houston as a landing pad and choosing Greentown as the place to start settling. We help them with funding. We help them with hiring local people.

IM: As you mentioned, Greentown Houston's membership grew really fast — how did you grow your team to support that?

JG: Our Houston team has quadrupled since last year and, and that's a lot — we were three and now we are 12, but we also had the whole Boston team behind us. The way we did it was through this matrix model where our team members report to someone in Boston. And although it creates an extra layer of complexity I think it was perfect for such a rapid growth because we were able to download the DNA of Greentown Boston to Houston at a much faster pace. We thought it was very important for us to distill that DNA but without forgetting about also having local people in Houston. It was the best of both worlds.

ER: We really needed to have the Houston local knowledge embedded, just like we needed to have the way that things have been done in Boston embedded. But I think as we look forward from now, you're going to increasingly see that we have embedded a lot of the practices and ways of doing things that we've done in Boston, but we're doing them with a Houston flavor, and we are doing them in a way that meets the local needs. And I think that you will see as we grow and continue to evolve, that we're gonna take our learnings from being in Houston and continue to evolve what we doin Houston. Our mission is to create an inclusive community and to convene connect, and inspire entrepreneurs and ecosystems to address climate solutions — and that's going to be the same in both locations. But how we do those specific pieces, I think will be a bit different. Now, Houston is a young ecosystem in terms of climate tech, so that convening piece is a little bit different from how we have done it in Boston.

IM: What's next for Greentown Houston — and what's next for the energy transition in Houston?

JG: For Greentown Houston we've figured out that our members need different things, and we wanna make sure that we listen and we adapt to them. It seems that a wet lab might be a need that we need to incorporate. So we're trying to figure out how, how to do that. We're growing at a much faster pace than Greentown Boston did, of course, because of the timing of the energy transition. That means that we need to think about, about expansion. We've become the convener place for climate tech.

In general in Houston for the energy transition, there's gonna be three pillars that I think are very important and that Greentown has to be apart of. One of them is the workforce development and the transition of the workforce. We're working with key partners like the Greater Houston Partnership and the Houston Energy Transition Initiative, and we're putting together a program with universities to make sure that we also extract the, the entrepreneurs of tomorrow to Greentown and to the energy transition capital.

The second aspect os access to capital there's a lot of capital of available in Houston and a lot of capital in general being poured into climate tech, but we need to make sure it comes earlier. We are very early on, and there's still a gap there for early stage investing. I think one of the key elements to be able to unlock that capital early is to make sure that our companies have pilots and demonstration at corporations.

I think the third part for the energy transition in Houston is unlocking the potential capabilities we already have, like in hydrogen by trying to become a hydrogen hub. And that will only happen if we all work together. So I think Greentown also has to play a role there of convening.

ER: Continuing to support entrepreneurs in Houston to really bring talent in, to not only help our entrepreneurs build their companies, but in general into the energy transition and climate that's something that will be leaning into the deployments of the technology at scale. That's something that Houston can uniquely do.

IM: What can people expect from both the livestream and the in-person event on Thursday?

ER: We're gonna have some great voices on that from across industry, and we are going to be showcasing our startups, both through pitches and then through a startup showcase where folks will be able to see and touch or at least talk to our entrepreneurs and learn about their companies and the opportunities to support them. I believe there will be a few other surprises, which I won't reveal.

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This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.

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State-of-the-art innovation hub opens in Houston Energy Corridor

flagship facility

French multinational company Schneider Electric has opened a new 10,500-square-foot, state-of-the-art Energy Innovation Center in Houston.

The new facility is located in Houston’s Energy Corridor and is designed to “foster increased collaboration and technological advancements across the entire value chain,” according to a news release from the company. The new Houston location joins Schneider's existing innovation hubs in Paris, Singapore and Bangalore.

The venue will serve as a training center for process control engineers, production superintendents, manufacturing managers, technical leads and plant operations personnel. It can simulate various real-world scenarios in refineries, combined-cycle power plants, ethylene plants, recovery boilers and chemical reactors.

It includes an interactive control room and artificial Intelligence applications that “highlight the future of industrial automation,” according to the release.

"Digitalization is significantly enhancing the global competitiveness of the U.S. through continuous innovation and increased investment into next-generation technology," Aamir Paul, Schneider Electric's President of North America Operations, said in the release.

Texas has over 4,100 Schneider Electric employees, the most among U.S. states, and has facilities in El Paso, the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and other areas.

"This flagship facility in the Energy Capital of the World underscores our commitment to driving the future of software-defined automation for our customers in Houston and beyond,” Paul added in the release. “With this announcement, we are excited to continue supporting the nation's ambitions around competitive, efficient and cost-effective manufacturing."

Schneider Electric says the new Houston facility is part of its expansion plans in the U.S. The company plans to invest over $700 million in its U.S. operations through 2027, which also includes an expansion at its El Paso campus.

The company also announced plans to invest in solar and battery storage systems developed, built, and operated by Houston-based ENGIE North America last year. Read more here.

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This story first appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

9 can't-miss Houston business and innovation events for April

where to be

Two new conferences will launch while another longtime business competition celebrates its 25th anniversary this month in Houston. Plus, there are networking opportunities, family tech events and more.

Here are the Houston business and innovation events you can't miss in April and how to register. Please note: this article might be updated to add more events.

​Ion Block Party: Art Crawl

Network and socialize with other tech enthusiasts and business-minded individuals while taking in the new gallery at Community Artists’ Collective and experiencing the immersive dome at Omnispace360. See work by Joel Zika, who will showcase his digital sculptures through augmented reality screens, and other public art around the Ion while also enjoying food and drink.

This event is Thursday, April 3, from 4-7 p.m. at the Ion. Click here to register.

​CLA Presents: Raising Capital over Happy Hour

Gain a better understanding of the capital-raising process and various funding opportunities at this educational happy hour. Keith Davidson, the market leader for CLA in Dallas and former CFO of ICS, will present.

This event is Thursday, April 10, from 4-6 p.m. at The Cannon. Click here to register.

Rice Business Plan Competition 

The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship will host the 25th annual Rice Business Plan Competition this month. Forty-two student-led teams from around the world, including one team from Rice, will present their plans before more than 300 angel, venture capital, and corporate investors to compete for more than $1 million in prizes.

This event is April 10-12. Stream the Elevator Pitch Competition and Final Round here.

RSVF Annual Conference

The Rice Student Venture Fund will host its first-ever Annual Conference to celebrate the university's entrepreneurial spirit and the rising generation of student-led innovation. The conference will include live startup demos, an RSVF fund update, a keynote fireside chat, a builder-investor panel and networking. RSVF welcomes students, alumni, investors, faculty and staff, and innovators and community members of the broader tech scene.

This event is Monday, April 14, from 4-8 p.m. at the Ion. Click here to register.

​TEX-E Conference

TEX-E will host its inaugural conference this month under the theme "Energy & Entrepreneurship: Navigating the Future of Climate Tech." The half-day conference will feature a keynote from Artemis Energy Partners CEO Bobby Tudor as well as panels with other energy and tech leaders from NRG, Microsoft, GE Vernova and TEB Tech.

This event is Tuesday, April 15, from 1-4:30 p.m. at the Ion. Click here to register.

Houston Methodist Leadership Speaker Series 

Hear from Dr. Jonathan Rogg, Chief Quality Officer and Vice President of Operations at Houston Methodist Hospital and a a practicing emergency medicine physician, at the latest Houston Methodist Leadership Speaker Series. Rogg will present "Leadership from the Bedside to the Boardroom."

This event is on Wednesday, April 23, from 4:45-6 p.m. at the Ion. Click here to register.

Ion Family STEAM Day– Let's Build a Tripwire Alarm

STEAM on Demand will host a hands-on, family-friendly engineering lesson for young ones on the Ion Forum Stairs. Kids will learn to create and test their own working alarm system. The event is geared toward those ages 7 to 14.

This event is Sunday, April 26, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Ion. Click here to register.

 Greentown Houston Fourth Anniversary Transition On Tap

Climatetech incubator Greentown Labs will celebrate its fourth anniversary with a special edition of its signature networking event, Transition On Tap. Entrepreneurs, investors, students, and friends of climatetech are invited to attend.

This event is Tuesday, April 29, from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at Greentown Labs. Click here to register.

Integrate Space Technology Into Your Small Biz

The SBA Houston District Office and the UH Technology Bridge will host a collaborative event designed to help small businesses leverage space technology for prototype development. Attendees will also hear from industry experts on resources and gain access free technical engineering assistance to help accelerate their businesses.

This event is Wednesday, April 30, from 9:30-11:30 a.m. at UH Technology Bridge Innovation Center. Click here to reserve your spot.

Texas university's innovative 'WaterHub' will dramatically reduce usage by 40%

Sustainable Move

A major advancement in sustainability is coming to one Texas university. A new UT WaterHub at the University of Texas at Austin will be the largest facility of its kind in the U.S. and will transform how the university manages its water resources.

It's designed to work with natural processes instead of against them for water savings of an estimated 40 percent. It's slated for completion in late 2027.

The university has had an active water recovery program since the 1980s. Still, water is becoming an increasing concern in Austin. According to Texas Living Waters, a coalition of conservation groups, Texas loses enough water annually to fill Lady Bird Lake roughly 89 times over.

As Austin continues to expand and face water shortages, the region's water supply faces increased pressure. The UT WaterHub plans to address this challenge by recycling water for campus energy operations, helping preserve water resources for both the university and local communities.

The 9,600-square-foot water treatment facility will use an innovative filtration approach. To reduce reliance on expensive machinery and chemicals, the system uses plants to naturally filter water and gravity to pull it in the direction it needs to go. Used water will be gathered from a new collection point near the Darrell K Royal Texas Memorial Stadium and transported to the WaterHub, located in the heart of the engineering district. The facility's design includes a greenhouse viewable to the public, serving as an interactive learning space.

Beyond water conservation, the facility is designed to protect the university against extreme weather events like winter storms. This new initiative will create a reliable backup water supply while decreasing university water usage, and will even reduce wastewater sent to the city by up to 70 percent.

H2O Innovation, UT’s collaborator in this project, specializes in water solutions, helping organizations manage their water efficiently.

"By combining cutting-edge technology with our innovative financing approach, we’re making it easier for organizations to adopt sustainable water practices that benefit both their bottom line and the environment, paving a step forward in water positivity,” said H2O Innovation president and CEO Frédéric Dugré in a press release.

The university expects significant cost savings with this project, since it won't have to spend as much on buying water from the city or paying fees to dispose of used water. Over the next several years, this could add up to millions of dollars.

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A version of this story originally appeared on our sister site, CultureMap Austin.