3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Aaron Knape of sEATz, Ivery Boston III of Houston Exponential, and Jesse Martinez of the LatinX Startup Alliance. 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 — from sportstech to startup-focused nonprofit work — recently making headlines in Houston innovation.

Aaron Knape, CEO and co-founder of sEATz

Aaron Knape joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to share how he's taking the sEATz platform into a new vertical. Photo courtesy of sEATz

Although sEATz was founded in 2018, Aaron Knape, CEO and co-founder, says it's only now that the company is really coming into its own as a startup ready to scale in a big way.

"I tell the team that we're kind of coming out of stealth mode — I know we're not in a true stealth mode, but we haven't spent a lot of money on sales and marketing," Knape says on this week's episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast. "Now it's time to start putting that emphasis on who we are, that we're here, and we're ready to take over."

Knape joins the show to discuss sEATz's expansion into health care and what's next for the growing company. Click here to read more and stream the podcast.

Ivery Boston III, director of inclusive innovation at Houston Exponential

Ivery Boston III joins HX to lead inclusive efforts. Photo via LinkedIn

Houston Exponential made a new hire to reflect on the city's diversity. Ivery Boston III is one week into his role as HX's director of inclusive innovation. He will be tasked with leading prototyping and testing new inclusive ideas and ways of operating, according to a news release from HX. He will also be responsible for creating opportunities for underrepresented founders to succeed in Houston.

Boston joins HX from Miami, where he led research, strategy, recruitment of high-growth startups, and impact reporting for the Miami Downtown Development Authority.

"I am excited to serve the Houston community as the director of inclusive innovation at Houston Exponential," says Boston in the release. "I'm a massive fan of HX's work advocating for, connecting, and raising the profile of the Houston innovation ecosystem while linking local founders to funding. It is a privilege to join this exemplary team and provide additional attention to underrepresented and under-encouraged founders within the city." Click here to read more.

Jesse Martinez, founder of the LatinX Startup Alliance

Jesse Martinez, founder of the LatinX Startup Alliance, joins InnovationMap for a Q&A on why he's relocating his nonprofit to Houston. Photo courtesy of LSA

Wheen Jesse Martinez was looking for startup support as a Latino founder, he couldn't find it. So, he took the initiative to make it himself and launched the LatinX Startup Alliance. The Houston native announced his plans to relocate his Silicon Valley nonprofit to The Ion next year.

He tells InnovationMap why he thinks Houston is the right market for LSA.

"We're on the ground floor. We're helping to build that foundation. It's not an afterthought. It's not something that now we're trying to go back and think of diversity," Martinez tells InnovationMap. "I think that's the beautiful thing about Houston and everyone that I've met is that it's been so diverse and inclusive. That spirit is already there. So, how do we just maximize that?" Click here to read the full Q&A.

Ivery Boston III joins HX to lead inclusive efforts. Photo via LinkedIn

Houston Exponential hires new exec to promote inclusive innovation

new to hou

Houston's considered one of the most diverse cities in the country, and Houston Exponential is focused on building an innovation ecosystem that's reflective of that.

The nonprofit organization announced a new hire that will lead this initiative. Ivery Boston III started this week as HX's director of inclusive innovation. He will be tasked with leading prototyping and testing new inclusive ideas and ways of operating, according to a news release from HX. He will also be responsible for creating opportunities for underrepresented founders to succeed in Houston.

"Other cities, in their dogged pursuit of being the next 'Silicon Valley,' followed the coastal playbook and weren't deliberate to support underserved entrepreneurs," says Serafina Lalany, executive director of Houston Exponential, in the release. "There is still much work to be done to address subtle and persistent forms of bias in the ways underrepresented founders access the resources, capital, and talent needed to thrive here in Houston. This move, for Houston Exponential and for the City of Houston, is part of an intentional strategy to foster a more inclusive, accessible ecosystem."

Boston joins HX from Miami, where he led research, strategy, recruitment of high-growth startups, and impact reporting for the Miami Downtown Development Authority.

"I am excited to serve the Houston community as the director of inclusive innovation at Houston Exponential," says Boston in the release. "I'm a massive fan of HX's work advocating for, connecting, and raising the profile of the Houston innovation ecosystem while linking local founders to funding. It is a privilege to join this exemplary team and provide additional attention to underrepresented and under-encouraged founders within the city."

Boston has also worked with Indeed.com, Zipcar, Sodexo, and other companies within market reporting. He attended Temple University.

"I look forward to rolling up my sleeves and ensuring that all Houstonians can see a viable path to entrepreneurship," he continues. "It's time to leverage Houston's diversity to bring in additional funding sources, create jobs, and use the profound local awareness of the world to launch businesses, services, and products that serve the global market."

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Pharma giant considers Houston for $1B manufacturing campus

in the works

Another pharmaceutical giant is considering Houston’s Generation Park for a manufacturing hub.

According to a recent filing with the Texas Jobs, Energy, Technology and Innovation (JETI) program, Bristol Myers Squibb Co. is considering the northeast Houston management district for a new $1 billion multi-modal pharmaceutical manufacturing campus.

If approved, the campus, known as Project Argonaut, could create 489 jobs in Texas by 2031. Jobs would include operations technicians, engineering roles, administrative and management roles, production specialists, maintenance support, and quality control/assurance. The company predicts annual average wages for these positions to be around $96,000, according to the filing.

The project currently includes the 600,000-square-foot facility, but according to the filing, Bristol Myers Squibb “envisions this site growing in scale and capability well beyond its opening configuration."

The Texas JETI program offers companies temporary school property tax limitations in exchange for major capital investment and job creation. E.R. Squibb & Sons LLC applied for a 10-year tax abatement agreement in the Sheldon Independent School District.

The agreement promises a $ 1 billion investment. Construction would begin in 2027 and wrap in 2029.

“The proposed project reflects [Bristol Myers Squibb Co.’s] enduring commitment to bringing innovative medicines to patients and ensuring the long-term supply reliability they depend on,” the filing says. “The proposed project is purpose-built to support and manufacture medicines spanning multiple therapeutic areas and modalities, positioning the site as a long-term launch and commercial campus for decades to come. These medicines will provide therapies to the [Bristol Myers Squibb Co.’s] patients located in markets both nationally and internationally.”

The Fortune 100 company is considering 16 other cities for the new manufacturing facility in the Central and Eastern markets in the U.S. According to the Houston Chronicle, Bristol Myers Squibb Co is still in the “evaluation process” for its potential manufacturing site.

Last fall, Eli Lilly and Co. selected Generation Park for its $6.5 billion manufacturing plant. More than 300 locations in the U.S. competed for the factory. Read more here.

Houston health tech co. lands NIH grant for AI cancer prediction tool

fresh funding

Houston-based CellChorus and Stanford Medicine were recently awarded a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research grant for the company's AI platform to test how certain cancer patients will respond to therapies.

The funding comes from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. According to a filing, the grant totaled just under $400,000.

CellChorus, which spun out from the University of Houston’s Technology Bridge, has developed TIMING (Time-lapse Imaging Microscopy In Nanowell Grids), which analyzes the behavior of thousands of individual immune cells over time and can identify early indicators of treatment success or failure.

The company will work with Stanford's Dr. David Miklos and Dr. Saurabh Dahiya, who have built the Bone Marrow Transplantation and Cell Therapy Biobank. The biobank manages and stores biological samples from patients treated at their clinic and in clinical trials.

"Predicting which patients will achieve durable responses after CAR-T therapy remains one of the most important challenges in the field,” Miklos said in a news release. “We aim to uncover functional cellular signatures that can guide treatment decisions and improve patient outcomes.”

The project will specifically profile cells from patients with relapsed/refractory large B-cell lymphoma (r/rLBCL). According to CellChorus, only about half of r/rLBCL patients who receive CAR-T therapy "achieve a durable, long-term remission." Others do not respond to therapy or experience relapse.

“The sooner we know whether a cancer therapy is working, the better. To maximize patient benefit, we need technology that can provide a robust and early prediction of response to therapy. The technology needs to be scalable, cost-efficient, and capable of rapid turnaround times,” Rebecca Berdeaux, chief scientific officer of CellChorus, added in the release. “We are excited to work with Drs. David Miklos and Saurabh Dahiya and their colleagues on this very important project.”

CellChorus has previously received SBIR grants from federal agencies, including a $2.5 million award in 2024 from its National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) and a $2.3 million SBIR Fast-Track award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences in 2023.

Houston museum showcases America's founding documents in rare exhibit

Experience History

As the United States prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday, Houstonians have a chance to see rare documents from the founding of the nation. Freedom Plane National Tour: Documents That Forged a Nation, presented by the National Archives Foundation, will be on display at the Houston Museum of Natural Science through Monday, May 25.

The collection includes a rare engraving of the original Declaration of Independence; official Oaths of Allegiance signed by George Washington, Aaron Burr, and Alexander Hamilton; a draft of the Bill of Rights; the Treaty of Paris, the documented that recognized America's independence from Great Britain; and the tally of votes approving the Constitution.

The National Archives specifically chose Houston as one of only eight cities in the country to host the exhibit as a means to help the documents reach a wider audience outside of the main hub of semiquincentennial events in New England and the Washington, D.C. area.

"One of the things we decided when we put the tour together because we wanted to be off the East Coast," said Patrick Madden, CEO of the National Archives Foundation, who was onsite for the exhibit's opening in Houston. "There's a lot of 250th celebration stuff happening in the original 13 colonies. How do we get it to major markets where larger numbers of people can see it? So in the case of Houston, obviously, [is a] major market in this part of the country, but also we've partnered with the museum twice before with National Archives exhibits, so we knew that they would be up to the task of handling the exhibit and the crowds."

The star of the collection is a rare engraving of the original Declaration of Independence. Secretary of State and future president John Quincy Adams commissioned 200 exact replicas of the document from engraver William J. Stone in 1823. Less than 50 now remain. Madden joyfully pointed out that there are errors in this document, a potent reminder that the men who forged a nation made mistakes.

"There's a couple of typos in it where they had to make corrections," said Madden. "So even the founders, you know, they're all human. That resonates because here these people are making this move against the most powerful nation in the world and putting their lives on the line for a country based on ideas."

Other impressive parts of the collection include official Oaths of Allegiance signed by George Washington, Aaron Burr, and Alexander Hamilton, as well as one of the drafts of the Bill of Rights. Many states would not ratify the Constitution until certain rights were included in the document, leading to Washington going on a national tour assuring state leaders enshrining protections was first on the list. The draft copy on display specifically shows the First Amendment in progress.

Houston is the fourth stop on the exhibition's tour, which will take the documents to Denver, Miami, Dearborn, and Seattle through the summer. Freedom Plane is just one part of a larger patriotic celebration at the HMNS, which includes a film series celebrating American science and culture and general Americana decoration throughout the main hall.

Admission to Freedom Plane is free to the public, but separate from general admission to the museum. Space is limited, and passes are available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Non-members should expect long waits or the possibility that the day's passes are sold out. Only museum members can reserve passes for specific times. Flash photography is prohibited due to the fragile nature of the documents.

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

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