5 most popular innovation stories in Houston this week

What's trending

Houston being picked as the first market for self-driving pizza delivery made this week's trending stories. Courtesy of Nuro and Domino's

Editor's note: Houston has tech news abound, from within the inner workings of the Houston Astros to pizza delivery. Plus funding news, a Q&A with a leader in Houston's LGBT scene for Pride Month, and more.

Hypergiant receives funding from Japan, UH honored for entrepreneur program, coworking space opens, and more Houston innovation news

Life Time Work opening its first Houston location is among this roundup of Houston innovation news. Courtesy of Life Time Work

In the Houston innovation news cycle, it's hard to keep up. Three higher education institutions are celebrating big wins within innovation and entrepreneurialism, a new coworking space joins the scene, and a health tech competition launches out of the Texas Medical Center. Continue reading the story.

Houston Astros executive addresses innovations in sports from esports to health care

Technology is changing America's pastime, and the Houston Astros have the lead off. Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images

Over the past decade or so, sports franchises have seen a boom in technology integration. The fact of the matter is that both the teams and the players need to tap into tech to have a competitive advantage on the field — and especially when it comes to the business side of things.

"Technologically advanced companies want to do business with technologically advanced companies," says Matt Brand, senior vice president of corporate partnerships and special events at the Houston Astros. "Old cats like me need to realize you have to stay current or else you're just going to get passed up." Continue reading the story.

Houston entrepreneur explains how he's seen the city's LGBT and innovation communities evolve

Corey Allen had entrepreneurialism in his blood — but it wasn't until he got involved with the Greater Houston LGBT Chamber that he got the courage to break out on his own. Courtesy of Corey Allen

Corey Allen grew up surrounded by entrepreneurship. His family owned several small businesses when he was growing up. But it took the support of his community to push him toward leadership.

From working in an accounting firm to dabbling in a few oil and gas companies, Allen's career trajectory changed when he joined the Greater Houston LGBT Chamber of Commerce. Within the organization, for which he serves as treasurer, he met other motivated entrepreneurs and was given the support needed to open his own business, Ecotone. Continue reading the story.

Self-driving pizza delivery vehicles will hit Houston's roads later this year

Domino's and Nuro have picked Houston to launch a self-driving pizza delivery vehicle pilot program. Courtesy of Nuro and Domino's

Unmanned vehicles are taking over Houston, any way you slice it. Nuro, the robotics company specializing in commercialized self-driving cars, first entered the Houston market earlier this year with its grocery delivery partnership with Kroger. Now, the company has teamed up with Domino's Pizza to deliver an autonomous pizza delivery pilot program in Houston.

Only a select group of Houston Domino's customers will be able to have the option to choose an unmanned delivery process from the R2 vehicles. Currently, Nuro and Domino's have not revealed who will be able to use the service or when. In a news release from Domino's, the company notes that the technology will be available later this year. Continue reading the story.

Overheard: Prominent business leaders weigh in on innovation in the energy and health industries

Ahead of entering the Houston market later this year, Silicon Valley's Plug and Play hosted three days of programming surrounding innovation in energy and health care. Natalie Harms/InnovationMap

Plug and Play, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm and accelerator program, plans to launch its operations in Houston later this year. And, in showing its commitment to the Bayou City, the organization hosted three days worth of panels, talks, and pitches at the Texas Medical Center's TMC Innovation Institute earlier this month.

Houston Innovation Week was Plug and Play's formal introduction to Houston startups and the local corporations that have the potential to support them. The programming focused on health and energy and sustainability, and the summit concluded with TMCx's Demo Day. Continue reading the story.

Life Time Work opening its first Houston location is among this roundup of Houston innovation news. Courtesy of Life Time Work

Hypergiant receives funding from Japan, UH honored for entrepreneur program, coworking space opens, and more Houston innovation news

Short stories

In the Houston innovation news cycle, it's hard to keep up. Three higher education institutions are celebrating big wins within innovation and entrepreneurialism, a new coworking space joins the scene, and a health tech competition launches out of the Texas Medical Center.

Here are all the short stories within Houston innovation that you may have missed.

Texas AI company makes international partnership

Photo via hypergiant.com

Hypergiant Industries, a Texas industrial AI company with a presence in Houston, announced that it has received funding from and has entered into a partnership with Japan-basedSumitomo Corporation of Americas. The relationship will allow the company to enable and accelerate Hypergiant's AI-driven innovation initiatives across over 900 Sumitomo subsidiaries and associated companies.

"We're proud to be backed by a global leader like SCOA," says Ben Lamm, CEO and co-founder of Hypergiant, in a release. "SCOA is a company that has advanced so many industries with critical technological breakthroughs decade after decade. This relationship will ensure that both SCOA and Hypergiant remain ahead of the competition in AI for years to come."

The funding amount wasn't disclosed.

Bauer College of Business gets top marks

Photo via bauerticker.uh.edu

The Deshpande Foundation has selected The University of Houston for its 2019 Entrepreneurial University Award, recognizing the Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship at the C.T. Bauer College of Business.

"Over the past decade, the Wolff Center's reputation as one of the nation's leading entrepreneurship programs has grown tremendously, and this award from the Deshpande Foundation reinforces that Bauer College is empowering students to innovate through a world-class program that emphasizes experiential learning and personalized attention by dedicated mentors," says Paul A. Pavlou, incoming dean of the Bauer College, in a release.

The award was announced by the Massachusetts-based organization at the Deshpande Symposium for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Higher Education at the University of Massachusetts Lowell on June 11.

Life Time Work opens its doors

Courtesy of Life Time Work

Life Time Work's first Houston-area location has opened its doors in City Centre Five at 825 Town & Country Lane. The next location has already been announced to open in downtown Houston next year.

"Life Time Work is a natural extension of the lifestyle brand we have built in our athletic resorts over the past 27 years," says Life Time Work president, James O'Reilly, in a release. "With Houston's continued growth and diversified business and entrepreneurial community, City Centre is the perfect location for us to unveil this concept. We look forward to helping our members in their pursuit of a fulfilling and healthy work life."

The 25,000-square-foot space features 79 desks, 48 offices, lounge spaces, eight phone booths, two phone rooms, five conference rooms, and more features.

JLABS @ TMC opens contest for health care startups

Photo via jlabs.jnjinnovation.com

Johnson & Johnson Innovation, the Texas Medical Center, and AngelMD have teamed up to launch the Breakthrough Medical Technologies QuickFire Challenge, which is looking for game-changing medical device ideas from all over the world for a chance to win prizes.

The winner — or winners — will "receive up to $250,000 in convertible notes funding from TMC, entry to the TMCx accelerator program, one year of residency at JLABS @ TMC in Houston, Texas, and access to the Johnson & Johnson, Innovation - JLABS global ecosystem," according to the website. Also on the line — an additional convertible note investment up to $100,000 from AngelMD's Catalyst Fund.

The competition is looking for innovations within a wide range of health technologies, from oncology to 3D printing.

Houston hospital ranks No. 1 in the state for being one of America's Best Employers

Courtesy of Methodist Hospital/Facebook

Forbes partnered with market research company Statista to identify the best employers in each state. In Texas, Houston was represented at the top. Houston Methodist ranked as the number one company on the Texas list.

Royal Dutch Shell, which ranks at No. 11, is the next Houston-headquartered company on the list, followed by The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (No. 19), Katy Independent School District (No. 22), and Texas Children's Hospital (No. 23.)

HCC recognized for innovation of the year

Photo courtesy of HCC

Houston Community College received the Innovation of the Year Award from the League for Innovation in the Community College. HCC won for its Zero Textbook Degree initiative, which launched in 2017 and has grown from 28 to 98 sections across five HCC campuses.

"The Z-Degree program is managed by an entire group of hardworking and forward-thinking HCC faculty who are all deserving of the accolades currently bestowed on them," says Chancellor Cesar Maldonado in a news release.

Textbook prices have increased 88 percent since 2006, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and, according to the release, textbooks could end up costing some HCC students more than their tuition.

Rice University hosts inaugural program for future entrepreneurs

Photo courtesy of Lilie



Rice's Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship got a jump on molding its young minds. Lilie hosted 44 incoming freshmen as a part of its inaugural Lilie Change Maker Summit. For four days, the to-be students had the opportunity to get get a taste of the program and entrepreneurialism through workshops, guest speakers, and more.

The summit was led by Jamie Jones, executive director of Lilie, and Hesam Panahi, lecturer in entrepreneurship at Rice's Jones Graduate School of Business and a faculty member at Lilie.

"We truly believe this will be a game changer in the Rice entrepreneurial ecosystem," says Caitlin Bolanos, associate director at Lilie, in an email to InnovationMap. "We were able to connect with these students and build loyalty before they even officially started in the fall, and the students are so pumped to have found each other and to continue working on their ideas while at Rice."

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3 Houston innovators to know right now

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Editor's note: InnovationMap regularly introduces its readers to a handful of Houston innovators recently making headlines with news of innovative technology, investment activity, and more. Our first January batch includes three innovators across social impact, health care, and more.

Phillip Yates, CEO of Equiliberty

Phillip Yates joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to share why 2025 is the year of launch for Equiliberty. Photo courtesy of Equiliberty

For Phillip Yates, this year will be the year of launch. The attorney-turned-entrepreneur has been working on his fintech platform, Equiliberty, for years now, but come the first half of 2025, it's go time.

"We're going to release our technology in Q2 of this year, and we're looking to commercialize it by the end of this year," Yates says on the Houston Innovators Podcast.

The platform connects users with resources to build wealth. Yates, along with his co-founders, Rachel Howard and Cody Bailey, created the company with the mindset that people with lower financial means can take control of their own financial success — in a way that doesn't take away from anyone else. Continue reading.

Meagan Pitcher, co-founder and CEO of Bairitone Health

Meagan Pitcher, co-founder and CEO of Bairitone Health, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast. Photo courtesy of Bairitone

There's a slew of treatment options for people living with sleep apnea. But, the bigger problem, as Meagan Pitcher realized during her time at the Texas Medical Center's Biodesign program, is that there's no easy way to reliably diagnose and determine a treatment plan for patients.

"We saw all of the companies trying to solve the problem of making the airway collapse less or make the air way wider — it might be surgery, might be medication, or nerve stimulation," Pitcher says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "One of the things we found was that it was really hard to match a patient with sleep apnea with a good treatment for them. One of the reasons is it's hard to get an understanding of where the individual's site of collapse is as sleep medicine is currently practiced."

As Pitcher went through the TMC Biodesign program, she teamed up with her co-founders — CTO Onur Kilicand and CMO Britt Cross — to find a solution, and together they developed Bairitone Health. The company's technology provides at-home medical imaging using sonar sensing. The non-invasive device has the potential to replace the current standard of care, which is a surgical procedure. Continue reading.

Moody Heard, CEO of BuildForce

Houston-based Buildforce is developing a technology to better connect contractors and the trade professionals they employ. Photo courtesy of Buildforce

Houston-based Buildforce announced it has acquired Ladder, which is a Y Combinator-backed, technology-enabled construction labor marketplace.

The acquisition is part of Buildforce’s expansion plans into the southeastern U.S. and during a time of increased demand for skilled construction talent. Buildforce will work to leverage the Ladder customer base of over 200 customers across six states, as well as its extensive electrician network of over 10,000 pre-screened electricians, which is the largest in the Southeast.

“There are two major problems plaguing the construction labor market,” Moody Heard, co-founder and CEO of Buildforce, says in a news release. “One, the project-based nature of construction work means tradesmen are constantly ‘working themselves out of a job’, meaning high employee turnover. And two, the industry is experiencing a secular decline in the supply of tradesmen relative to surging demand.” Continue reading.

Houston sportstech startup shoots, scores in Pharrell Williams competition

on the rebound

Anyone who's witnessed even just a minute of basketball knows how important accuracy is in sinking shots on the court. One Houston startup has developed a device to help practice make perfect in a game.

GRIND’s portable basketball shooting machine, the first of its kind, was created by founder and CEO Thomas Fields, former basketball phenom at Houston’s Reagan High School (now Heights High School).

“I remember being on varsity as a freshman and shooting thousands of shots every day trying to be the best,” says Fields. “My school bought a shooting machine, but they never let me use it. It was a game-changing piece of equipment, and I didn’t even have access because the gyms were always closed or closing.

“And another major problem was getting your rebounds, so we set out to make a portable basketball rebounding machine, so you could take it anywhere like home, the park, or the gym. It was also important to make it affordable, too.”

The GRIND shooting machine is available online. Photo via grindbasketball.com

At just 110 pounds, the GRIND shooting machine is 54 percent lighter than other home shooting machines, has a 12-foot net, and needs just 90 seconds to set up or take down.

“Our portable shooting machine has been on the market for about three, four years now,” says Fields. “So now it's time to kind of accelerate the growth, and that’s pretty exciting. We really have our sights on NBA Africa for a partnership there. Another one is Adidas; we are collaborating with them right now and they're also one of the sponsors of Black Hat Mission. And hopefully, we would like to land some NBA guys to invest and really get behind our sportstech company, but also make a significant impact in the community by getting kids into tech through sports.”

To that end, GRIND recently won second place in a competition from Black Ambition, an organization founded by Pharrell Williams. With the tagline, “Uninterrupted ambition. Unmatched impact,” the Black Ambition Prize celebrates underrepresented founders globally.

“When I initially heard of Black Ambition, I just kind of heard that Pharrell had started a venture fund aimed at uplifting black and brown entrepreneurs,” says Fields. “And when I read more about it, I realized that their mission perfectly aligned with GRIND. Our goal is to try to get kids into tech and STEM, but use sports as the conduit and the bridge to get them there.

“We applied for the million-dollar cash prize for first place, but took second place, which is a $250,000 investment in the company. So now that Pharrell and Black Ambition are behind us, we are going out and raising some more capital to hit that hyper stage that we're going into. We are launching our software next year and our hardware has really been growing.”

Fields pitched GRIND on Shark Tank in May of 2021, where he was offered a joint deal for $250,000 for 25 percent of the company from both Mark Cuban and Barbara Corcoran. While Fields agreed on the show, the finalized terms of the deal were not disclosed.

- YouTubeThomas Fields is seeking $250000 for a 5% stake of GRIND. From Season 12 Episode 23 Watch Now: ...

As a startup, GRIND, a consumer brand developing the world’s first smart ecosystem of sports equipment products, represents the continued uptick with sportstech innovation in Houston.

“We want to revolutionize the world of sports equipment by leveraging cutting edge technology by developing sports equipment that can seamlessly connect to software, enhancing athletic performance, and pushing athletes to achieve their peak potential,” Fields says.

As GRIND continues to push forward and expand its footprint, it’s also looking to expand its customer base.

“I think the target users are middle school and high school athletes,” says Fields. “These are the kids that are striving to be great athletes and striving to get into college. We also have colleges that have our product, as well. But mostly, the customer is the parents of those athletes. That's really who we're trying to get excited.

“And then, of course, there are the coaches and trainers. They own gyms; they own organizations and need equipment for their schools and universities. That's another target customer of ours for sure.”

Ultimately, GRIND will continue to build on Fields’ initial inspiration to design products and technologies with the athletes — especially hoopers — in mind.

“Our goal in the next few years is to really amp up the scholarships that we facilitate to funnel kids into STEM tech careers and pathways,” says Fields. “GRIND Day, which is a proclamation the City of Houston gave us for August 12 each year, is a day where we bring sports, tech, and culture all under one umbrella. Kids see us using 3D printers and lasers to cut the products that we make in our warehouse, which is in an underserved community, which hopefully makes them think it’s cool and want to get into technology.”

Houston airport cut traffic congestion by 99 percent during peak travel season

A Soaring Improvement

Years of physical improvements and other initiatives paid off this holiday season at George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH). Despite seeing a record number of flyers, traffic congestion at the airport dropped by an astounding amount.

“Our goal was to deliver a seamless journey during one of the busiest travel seasons of the year,” said Jim Szczesniak, director of aviation for Houston Airports. “The results show that our investments in infrastructure, technology and customer service are paying off. We are proud of our team and the traveling public for working together to make this holiday season a success. Our coordinated efforts between Houston Airports and Houston Police kept traffic flowing smoothly at our departure curbs while passengers followed instructions and used cell phones lots effectively. These efforts, paired with infrastructure improvements like the new International Arrivals Curb and expanded Terminal C garage entrance, demonstrate our commitment to delivering world-class service and efficiency.”

The holiday flying season officially lasts from December 20 to January 6. Data from Houston airports shows that between December 20 and December 30, 1.7 million passengers passed through IAH, a 21 percent increase over the same period in 2023. However, the number of heavy traffic periods fell 90 percent and periods of severe traffic fell 99 percent. To put it another way, passengers at IAH spent 4.4 hours in severe traffic during Christmas 2023. This past Christmas, it was just 2 minutes, an astounding reduction.

This was accomplished with the long-awaited new IAH International Arrivals Curb, which opened for public use on December 14. The new arrivals curb features seven lanes for dedicated drop-off and pick-up, greatly increasing the places for passengers to enter and exit the airport. IAH also opened the previously closed entry roadway lane before Thanksgiving, further reducing traffic snarl.

For those leaving their cars at the airport, a new cashless, automated system was built at HAS garages and ecoparks. New curbside agents were also hired, and Houston police helped direct traffic during the stressful and busy time.

“Our focus is always on providing a safe, stress-free experience,” said Kelly Woodward, chief operating officer for Houston Airports. “These upgrades allowed us to accommodate record passenger numbers while keeping traffic flowing. It’s a win for travelers and our city.”

IAH will continue to improve in 2025 as the new International Central Processor terminal comes fully online. As IAH becomes one of the main Gateways to Latin and South America, it will continue to serve the increasing number of flyers heading south of the border. Some time in 2025, 11 new lanes will open on the upper level, keeping traffic moving briskly.

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This story originally appeared on our sister site, CultureMap.com.

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