3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Sameer Soleja of Molecule, Gabriela Gerhart of The Motherhood center, and 50 Cent. Courtesy photos

Editor's note: In this week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to three local innovators across industries — software, education, and more — recently making headlines in Houston innovation.

Sameer Soleja, CEO of Molecule

Sameer Soleja, CEO of Molecule, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss his startup's recent fundraise — and how he's planning on being at the forefront of the evolving electricity commodities industry. Photo courtesy of Molecule

A 9-year-old software startup has been reinvigorated by fresh funds and a new opportunity to emerge as a leader in enterprise software for commodities — especially for electricity traders. Sameer Soleja, CEO of Molecule, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss the company's latest funding round — a $12 million series A.

"The commodities industry is looking really hard at electricity as the growth commodity of the 2020s — renewables and conventionally generated electricity," Soleja says. "Everybody in our client base and in the market is looking at electricity. Well, we happen to have more than have of our customer base be in electricity."

Click here to listen to the podcast and read more.

Gabriela Gerhart, founder of The Motherhood Center

Houston entrepreneur recounts journey from communism to U.S. success in new book

Gabriela Gerhart recounts her journey from communism to American success in her new book. Photo courtesy of Gabriela Gerhart

Gabriela Gerhart remembers that day, back in 1989, when her teacher walked into her classroom in Czechoslovakia and announced that communism was over. Further, she told the group that everything she'd been teaching them was a lie.

Gerhart was stunned.

"It was confusing," she tells CultureMap. "You think to yourself, 'was I fooled? Was I indoctrinated? 'You have to understand, I had no idea there was another world out there."

Gerhart, founder of The Motherhood Center on West Alabama Street unpacks those feelings and others in her new autobiography, After The Fall, a story of growing up in Central Europe under communism and following her own wanderlust to the States, where she fell in love, got married, and built a successful business.

Click here to read more.

Rapper 50 Cent really means business. 50 Cent/Twitter

Rap star and Newstonian 50 Cent is giving back to area schools in need of help. The recently relocated rapper/producer/entrepreneur/rodeo wine bidder is teaming up with the Houston Independent School District and Horizon United Group to bolster entrepreneurship programs at Kashmere, Worthing, and Wheatley high schools.

He has funded the project with a $600,000 donation, Mayor Sylvester Turner announced on May 17.

Dubbed the G-Unity Business Lab, the new program will encourage students to engage in MBA-level lessons that represent the full lifecycle of a product or concept, from idea creation, to market branding, to even running a company, a press release notes.

Click here to read more.

Gabriela Gerhart recounts her journey from communism to American success in her new book. Photo courtesy of Gabriela Gerhart

Houston entrepreneur recounts journey from communism to U.S. success in new book

RISING FROM THE FALL

Gabriela Gerhart remembers that day, back in 1989, when her teacher walked into her classroom in Czechoslovakia and announced that communism was over. Further, she told the group that everything she'd been teaching them was a lie.

Gerhart was stunned.

"It was confusing," she tells CultureMap. "You think to yourself, 'was I fooled? Was I indoctrinated? 'You have to understand, I had no idea there was another world out there."

Gerhart, founder of The Motherhood Center on West Alabama Street unpacks those feelings and others in her new autobiography, After The Fall, a story of growing up in Central Europe under communism and following her own wanderlust to the States, where she fell in love, got married, and built a successful business.

The Houston launch for the book is Wednesday, May 19 at The Motherhood Center from 4 pm to 6 pm. The official Austin launch happens on Thursday, May 20 at Central Machine Works from 4 pm to 6 pm. Both events are free, but audiences are asked to register. After the Fall is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, at Brazos Bookstore, and online.

In many ways, Gerhart's journey is like many other immigrant stories of coming to a new land and rebuilding a life. For Gerhart, though, it wasn't just about building a new life, it was learning that she had choices.

Before the fall
In her homeland, she'd been involved with a communist youth group, and had plans to rise through the communist party. When communism fell, her sense of how she saw herself was battered. All of a sudden, though, there were opportunities.

"Growing up, my friends and I all wore the same clothes," she says. "But it was because you would go into a store and there might be only three kinds of winter jacket."

With the fall of communism, Gerhart could travel far beyond her Czech roots, and discover all sorts of new things: new foods, new styles, new ideas.

"I was hungry for adventures and experiences," she remembers.

After the fall
She came to the U.S. in 1998, where she became an au pair. While she didn't have a choice of where she was sent, she says that she loved that she landed in Houston. The Bayou City would open her eyes to all the possibilities of what she could do and what she could be.

Gerhart describes herself as someone who is always challenging herself, so being an entrepreneur was a natural fit. She's also always been nurturing, which is what led her to study nursing and become a pediatric nurse. Combining her love of mothers and babies with her grit and determination, she built The Motherhood Center in 2000 to provide expectant and early post-natal moms with a supportive network and educational resources to raise healthy children, while not neglecting themselves.

All of it is outlined in After the Fall, in triumph and tragedy. Gerhart outlines her inability to have children, even as she was building her business into the premier destination for moms and babies. A stepmother and grandmother now, she says she has found great happiness in her life, chasing her dreams and adventures across continents and political changes.

An American dream
"My favorite thing about America is that there are so many opportunities," she says. "I am so grateful. It's really amazing how young America is. People don't realize, the basement in my house in the Czech Republic is 300 years older than this country," she jokes.

Writing her autobiography gave her the chance to reflect on that, as well as unpack her own feelings about communism and its fall. Growing up, she says, her parents never discussed their feelings about the subject; it was far too dangerous.

"A parent might say something to their child and the child could go to school and repeat it and all of a sudden, there would be a knock on the door from the police," she says. "Writing this book meant my parents and I could speak more openly about it, and I was able to see things from their perspective."

She hopes the book will inspire others to embrace their potential and pursue their own dreams. Maybe they'll be encouraged to start their own business. Maybe they'll re-discover gratitude for being Americans. Maybe they'll set off on their own adventures.

As for Gerhart, now that the book is finished, she's looking ahead to what's next. She'll keep expanding The Motherhood Center and its programming, and she's taking on speaking engagements in the coming months.

"I have a need to share," she explains. "And I'll keep doing that.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

This Mother's Day, The Motherhood Center's founder is looking back on 20 years of care for Houston's new and expecting mothers. Getty Images

Houston specialist reflects on innovation and technology's effect on pregnancy care

Guest column

Mother's Day this Sunday will be a very different kind of day for mothers across the world, and I found myself reflecting on the innovation and evolution of pregnancy care and the different options women have nowadays.

When I founded The Motherhood Center in 2000, I had one simple goal, which was to provide Houston's new and expecting moms with unparalleled support and guidance. Now, 20 years later, we provide a full range of services for parents across every stage of parenthood. My team and I have held true to this mission, and, as new technologies and schools of thought emerged, so too have we evolved.

The evolution of family planning

One of the biggest changes we have witnessed over the past two decades is people's approach to family planning. We are seeing a lot more women choosing to have children later in life. With all the wonderful technological advancements — such as IVF, fertility treatments and egg freezing — we have seen women focus on their careers and start a family at an older age. One unexpected result of this is kind of funny – we are seeing a lot more twins and triplets.

We've also seen an increase in involvement from fathers. More and more dads are taking paternity leave these days – we hope to see that trend continue to grow. They are also coming to classes and getting involved in the pregnancies. Often, they are the ones who call us to learn more about our services.

New technologies and products

Technology has prompted some of the biggest changes in pregnancy. There are a lot of devices that new parents can use these days — from baby monitors, breathing and movement monitors, and much more. All this technology routes directly to parent's smartphones so they can know in real time what is always happening with their baby. While we love that parents can be more informed, we also don't want them to become so dependent on technology that they stop trusting their instincts. It is our job to encourage them to trust themselves (along with technology) so they can be the best parents they can be.

Another way technology has affected our business is that we are now able to reach our clients 24 hours a day, seven days a week through our website. We get a lot of form submissions late at night – particularly for support with breastfeeding and sleep training. We might not be able to answer the phone at 2 a.m., but our website has the resources to support new parents no matter the time of day.

For better or for worse, we have seen a huge increase in the number of products that are available for baby and mom. While there are some products that we absolutely love, many of the new products that have flooded the market are not needed. Because of this, we created a boutique at our center to help parents purchase only the items they will use. We also provide in-person support for purchasing some of the more personal products like nursing bras.

An increased access to information

Just as there are more and more products out there for new or expecting parents, there is also a wealth of information available – sometimes too much. We have seen a lot of parents using apps and reading blogs that might have inaccurate information, since many of these platforms are not regulated. For instance, these blogs don't account for the parents' medical and personal history. Because of this, we often see parents with a lot of anxiety and information overload. We find our in-person and virtual classes taught by professionals using unbiased, medically approved information brings our clients a lot of peace.

This has been a difficult year for everyone — especially expecting moms and new parents. People can't go out and attend classes and many hospitals have had to cancel their pregnancy courses. We have taken this as an opportunity to launch Motherhood Center into the next 20 years.

We now offer virtual educational courses and fitness classes. These classes are available to support parents anywhere — more information is available online. We are excited about the potential to expand our reach outside of Houston.

With The Motherhood Center celebrating its anniversary in May, we are so thankful we have been able to support Houston's mothers for 20 years, and we can't wait to see what the next 20 years hold.

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Gabriela Gerhart is the founder of The Motherhood Center.

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Report: Houston reclaims top 10 ranking among America's best cities

Houston has made a triumphant return to America's 10 best cities for 2026, certifying the city is a cornerstone of the country's growth and economic prosperity.

Houston ranks No. 9 nationwide in the annual "America's Best Cities" report from Canada-based real estate and tourism marketing firm Resonance Consultancy. Each year, the report ranks the relative qualities of livability, cultural "lovability," and economic prosperity in 393 American cities with metropolitan populations of 500,000 or more.

Dallas surpassed H-Town as the No. 8 best city in America, and the Lone Star State boasts a strong presence among the top 25. Austin and San Antonio, respectively, were named the 11th and 24th best American cities this year.

Previously, Houston was dubbed the 13th best American city in 2025, down from its No. 10 ranking in the 2024 report.

Rather than profiling each individual city like in past reports, the 2026 edition focuses on regional and state prosperity. Texas' economic dominance is second only to Florida's, and the state's growth is solidified by the Dallas-Houston-Austin "triangle," where each metro has its own distinct economic identity, but when combined "form one of the most formidable regional economies in the world."

"In our 2026 survey, Dallas ranks third nationally as the place Americans believe offers the best job opportunities, Austin fifth, and Houston seventh," the report's author wrote. "That concentration of perceived economic opportunity in a single state is unmatched, and the GDP data confirms it isn’t just perception."

After being named one of the best places to start a business or a career earlier in 2026, Houston has continued to punch above its weight with its success in tourism, education, and housing growth.

Overall, the report found a correlation between a city's population growth and its latest ranking, with bigger cities appearing higher up on the list. The top three best American cities — New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago — are coincidentally the three largest metros, while Dallas and Houston are the fourth and fifth largest but appear eighth and ninth on the list.

"Scale compounds at the large city level — more people generate more economic activity, more cultural infrastructure, more employer presence, which attracts more people," the report said.

The top 10 best cities in America for 2026 are:

  • No. 1 – New York
  • No. 2 – Los Angeles
  • No. 3 – Chicago
  • No. 4 – Miami
  • No. 5 – San Francisco
  • No. 6 – Seattle
  • No. 7 – Las Vegas
  • No. 8 – Dallas
  • No. 9 – Houston
  • No. 10 – Boston

New probe into Tesla after vehicle slams into Houston-area home at high speed

Tesla Talk

The top U.S. auto regulator opened an investigation Monday, June 22, after a Tesla using an automated driving feature slammed into a Texas home at high speed and killed a 76-year-old woman standing inside.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it's opening a special investigation into the Tesla Model 3 crash on Friday near Houston, a significant probe because the car was using technology that Elon Musk considers key to the company's future.

The Tesla CEO is rolling out robotaxis using automated software in several U.S. cities this year and plans to invite Tesla owners to put their cars into the fleet using the same system across the country.

The driver told the Harris County Sheriff's Office that he was using the technology, according to a police report on the crash, but it's not clear what role, if any, it played in the incident.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment but the head of the company's artificial intelligence efforts suggested on social media later Monday that the self-driving feature was not to blame.

“In this case, the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100% of the accel pedal in this residential area,” wrote Ashok Elluswamy on X, the platform that is now part of Musk's rocket company, SpaceX. “They reached a speed of 73 mph during the crash, and had the accelerator pressed even after the crash.”

The police report noted that the driver was not drunk and is cooperating. It identified the woman killed as Martha Avila.

Video obtained by KHOU-TV shows the car traveling at top speed over the front lawn of a brick home in Katy, then ramming into a front room. The next shot shows the car encased in the home amid piles of crumbling plaster, split beams and bits of furniture.

The auto safety regulator, known as NHTSA, has launched several investigations into Tesla, including one late last year into 58 incidents in which Teslas reportedly violated traffic safety laws while using self-driving technology, leading to more than a dozen crashes and fires and nearly two dozen injuries.

A few months earlier, the NHTSA opened an investigation into why Tesla apparently had not been reporting crashes promptly as required.

As for special crash investigations, the NHTSA has opened 46 involving Teslas using self-driving or driver-assistance technology over the past decade, according to the agency's records. In more than a dozen of those crashes, at least one person — a driver, passenger or pedestrian — was killed.

Tesla stock fell sharply early last year as car sales plunged amid a boycott of Musk after he waded into politics, leading President Donald Trump's budget-cutting Department of Government Efficiency initiative and embracing European extremist candidates.

Musk has since shifted the Tesla story to one less about car sales and more about AI and robotaxis, and done so successfully. The stock is up 16% in the past year.

Intuitive Machines lands $1M grant to expand robotics operations

Expansion mode

Houston-based Intuitive Machines is expanding its operations around the country.

The space tech company—which has offices and labs in Texas, California, Arizona, Colorado and Maryland—announced that it has received a $1 million grant from Maryland Gov. Wes Moore through the state's Build Our Future Grant. The funding will go toward expanding Intuitive Machines’ Super Cislunar Robotics Assembly Building (Supa-CRAB) Mechanisms and Robotics Center of Excellence in Anne Arundel County.

The company will move into a 69,000-square-foot facility and build out additional lab and office space. It will also procure equipment that will allow for in-house Assembly, Integration and Test (AI&T) activities, according to a news release. Intuitive Machines says the expansion will take place this fall.

“This collaboration shows how industry, state programs, and education can reinforce one another,” Steve Altemus, CEO of Intuitive Machines, said in the release. “Maryland invests in innovation, companies grow and hire, students gain experience, and communities benefit from new opportunities and long-term career pathways. Together with Governor Moore, the state of Maryland, and Anne Arundel County leaders, we are building a permanent path to long-term lunar operations, an advanced robotics and mechanisms center of excellence, and a technology edge for our nation.”

Intuitive Machines first launched operations in Maryland in 2021 and has since expanded five times in the state. The company officially opened its robotics and mechanisms facility in 2024.

The Maryland team has built robotics and mechanisms for the Nova-C landers and IM-1 and IM-2 missions. In the future, Intuitive Machines expects the Maryland team to work on its IM-3 Rover Deployment Mechanism (RDM), a 360 pan-tilt camera for panoramic views, the Main Engine Gimbal (MEG), and the company's first data relay satellite, known as Altus-1.

Intuitive Machines moved into a new $40 million headquarters at the Houston Spaceport in 2023. The company announced an expansion of its lease last year.

The company announced a $175 million equity investment to fuel growth in March. It's since landed a $180 million NASA CLPS award to deliver seven payloads to the moon's Mons Malapert on the IM-5 mission.

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