Ten Houston innovators took the stage for five fights on the role technology plays in the future of industry. Emily Jaschke/InnovationMap

On Wednesday, Houston's innovation ecosystem hosted the rowdiest crowd at a professional business event that the city has ever seen.

Digital Fight Club, a Dallas-based event company, had its first Houston event at White Oak Music Hall on November 20 thanks to presenting sponsors Accenture and InnovationMap. The event featured 10 fighters and five referees across five fights that discussed cybersecurity, the future of primary care, and more.

"This is Digital Fight Club," says Michael Pratt, CEO of the company. "You get subject matter experts, and serious founders and CEOs on the stage and make them make their case. You learn something, it's a lot of fun, and it's a lot better than a panel."

If you missed the showdown, here are some of the nights zingers made by the entrepreneurs and subject matter experts that were the fighters of the evening.

"I believe that computers can get a lot of information to create [something new]. That's my job, that's what I do, and I see it done."

Pablo Marin, senior AI leader at Microsoft, during the fight on robotics and AI in the workforce. Marin's argument was that artificial intelligence and robotics can and will replace all repetitive jobs. However, he also believes that computers have the ability to create, as well, based on their ability to see the whole world and have access to all the world's information.

"AI is mostly bullshit."

Matthew Hager, CEO of Poetic Systems. Hager, who won the first fight of the night, responded to Marin that, while businesses like to believe that AI is actually able to deliver results so that they can sell more, the technology hasn't actually arrived yet. Plus, Hager says AI will never be creative without the human element. "Creativity is about who created it. It's about the photographer, not the camera," he says.

"What if the seatbelt laws and the speed limits were defined by Dodge, Ford, or Chrysler?"

Ted Gutierrez, CEO and co-founder of Security Gate, who argued for government to take the reigns of cybersecurity. He adds that companies are never going to be able to agree to one set of rules. "We gotta get one group to set the standard, and it's up to everyone else to refine that and innovate for it," he says.

"Compliance doesn't mean you're secure."

Tara Khanna, managing director and security lead at Accenture, who won the fight on cybersecurity needing to be figured out by the business industry. She argues that the private sector wins the war on talent and recruiting, so it has the money and resources to dedicate to the issue in more ways than the government ever will.

"I was born, I'm going to die, and there is nothing like earth in the universe as we know it. It is worth preserving and protecting."

Steven Taylor, co-founder of AR for Everyone, in the fight over the oil and gas industry's responsibility to the environment. He argued that it's going to be a mix of policy and corporate initiatives that changes the industry.

"I think the free market is going to get there if the consumer has the choice to pick what they want to do."

Michael Szafron, commercial adviser for Cemvita Factory, who took home the win for the oil and gas and the environment fight. Szafron's argument was that corporations are going to do what their consumers want, so that's who would drive them to action. "Let's look at California —very regulated environmentalists, and a million of those people get moved to Texas," he says.

"Disconnecting our personal lives from technology would not only limit ourselves, but it would also limit our capacity to adopt those tools to the needs of our society." 

Javier Fadul, chief innovation officer at HTX Labs, during the fight on digital in our personal lives. Fadul argues that not only does technology allow us to connect worldwide, but disconnecting would prevent that technology from developing further.

"I love tech, but now that it's on all the time everywhere, we need to make time to unplug."

Grace Rodriguez, CEO of Impact Hub Houston, who won the fight on personal technology. She says that yes, technology can help international connectivity, but it does more harm than good as people use personal tech as a default or distraction from humans right in front of them. "When your with people, be present," she says.

"Part of our innovation to redesign primary care is really to deploy technology out there to seamlessly provide care."

Nick Desai, chief medical information officer at Houston Methodist, who argued that the future of primary care is new innovations within traditional medicine. He adds that virtual care, which is something Methodist is working on, can help improve accessibility.

"The future of primary care is here. It's called direct primary care." 

Geetinder Goyal, CEO of First Primary Care, who won the fight on the future of primary care with his argument for a new, free market approach to medicine. Direct primary care opens up treatment and access to physicians with a monthly fee for patients to work outside of health care plans.

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UH researchers develop breakthrough material to boost efficiency of sodium-ion batteries

eyes on clean energy

A research lab at the University of Houston has developed a new type of material for sodium-ion batteries that could make them more efficient and boost their energy performance.

Led by Pieremanuele Canepa, Robert Welch assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at UH, the Canepa Research Laboratory is working on a new material called sodium vanadium phosphate, which improves sodium-ion battery performance by increasing the energy density. Energy density is the amount of energy stored per kilogram, and the new material can do so by more than 15 percent. With a higher energy density of 458 watt-hours per kilogram — compared to the 396 watt-hours per kilogram in older sodium-ion batteries — this material brings sodium technology closer to competing with lithium-ion batteries, according to the researchers.

The Canepa Lab used theoretical expertise and computational methods to discover new materials and molecules to help advance clean energy technologies. The team at UH worked with the research groups headed by French researchers Christian Masquelier and Laurence Croguennec from the Laboratoire de Reáctivité et de Chimie des Solides, which is a CNRS laboratory part of the Université de Picardie Jules Verne, in Amiens France, and the Institut de Chimie de la Matière Condensée de Bordeaux, Université de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France for the experimental work on the project.

The researchers then created a battery prototype using the new materia sodium vanadium phosphate, which demonstrated energy storage improvements. The material is part of a group called “Na superionic conductors” or NaSICONs, which is made to let sodium ions move in and out of the battery during charging and discharging.

“The continuous voltage change is a key feature,” Canepa says in a news release. “It means the battery can perform more efficiently without compromising the electrode stability. That’s a game-changer for sodium-ion technology.”

The synthesis method used to create sodium vanadium phosphate may be applied to other materials with similar chemistries, which could create new opportunities for advanced energy storage. A paper of this work was published in the journal Nature Materials.

"Our goal is to find clean, sustainable solutions for energy storage," Canepa adds. "This material shows that sodium-ion batteries can meet the high-energy demands of modern technology while being cost-effective and environmentally friendly."

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This article originally appeared on EnergyCapital.

Houston hospital names leading cancer scientist as new academic head

new hire

Houston Methodist Academic Institute has named cancer clinician and scientist Dr. Jenny Chang as its new executive vice president, president, CEO, and chief academic officer.

Chang was selected following a national search and will succeed Dr. H. Dirk Sostman, who will retire in February after 20 years of leadership. Chang is the director of the Houston Methodist Dr. Mary and Ron Neal Cancer Center and the Emily Herrmann Presidential Distinguished Chair in Cancer Research. She has been with Houston Methodist for 15 years.

Over the last five years, Chang has served as the institute’s chief clinical science officer and is credited with strengthening cancer clinical trials. Her work has focused on therapy-resistant cancer stem cells and their treatment, particularly relating to breast cancer.

Her work has generated more than $35 million in funding for Houston Methodist from organizations like the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute, according to the health care system. In 2021, Dr. Mary Neal and her husband Ron Neal, whom the cancer center is now named after, donated $25 million to support her and her team’s research on advanced cancer therapy.

In her new role, Chang will work to expand clinical and translational research and education across Houston Methodist in digital health, robotics and bioengineered therapeutics.

“Dr. Chang’s dedication to Houston Methodist is unparalleled,” Dr. Marc L. Boom, Houston Methodist president and CEO, said in a news release. “She is committed to our mission and to helping our patients, and her clinical expertise, research innovation and health care leadership make her the ideal choice for leading our academic mission into an exciting new chapter.”

Chang is a member of the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) Stand Up to Cancer Scientific Advisory Council. She earned her medical degree from Cambridge University in England and completed fellowship training in medical oncology at the Royal Marsden Hospital/Institute for Cancer Research. She earned her research doctorate from the University of London.

She is also a professor at Weill Cornell Medical School, which is affiliated with the Houston Methodist Academic Institute.

Texas A&M awarded $1.3M federal grant to develop clean energy tech from electronic waste

seeing green

Texas A&M University in College Station has received a nearly $1.3 million federal grant for development of clean energy technology.

The university will use the $1,280,553 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a cost-effective, sustainable method for extracting rare earth elements from electronic waste.

Rare earth elements (REEs) are a set of 17 metallic elements.

“REEs are essential components of more than 200 products, especially high-tech consumer products, such as cellular telephones, computer hard drives, electric and hybrid vehicles, and flat-screen monitors and televisions,” according to the Eos news website.

REEs also are found in defense equipment and technology such as electronic displays, guidance systems, lasers, and radar and sonar systems, says Eos.

The grant awarded to Texas A&M was among $17 million in DOE grants given to 14 projects that seek to accelerate innovation in the critical materials sector. The federal Energy Act of 2020 defines a critical material — such as aluminum, cobalt, copper, lithium, magnesium, nickel, and platinum — as a substance that faces a high risk of supply chain disruption and “serves an essential function” in the energy sector.

“DOE is helping reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign supply chains through innovative solutions that will tap domestic sources of the critical materials needed for next-generation technologies,” says U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. “These investments — part of our industrial strategy — will keep America’s growing manufacturing industry competitive while delivering economic benefits to communities nationwide.”

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This article originally appeared on EnergyCapital.