3 Houston innovators to know this week

Who's who

This week's innovators to know includes John Berger, Mary Beth Snodgrass, and Gene Austin. Courtesy photos

Houston is still — but most accounts — emerging as a tech and innovation hub, which could seem to mean that the startups that make up the innovation ecosystem reside in early stages of business scale.

However, this week's sampling of Houston innovators to know demonstrate the scope in scale of Houston's companies — from a CEO to a newly public company and recently hired CEO of a rapidly scaling software company to a health tech leader fresh out of the gates.

John Berger, CEO of Sunnova

Photo courtesy of Sunnova

Taking a company public brings on a slew of changes. One that might be overlooked is the change for the leader of that company. John Berger —CEO of Sunnova, a Houston-based solar energy company that went public last summer — joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss the changes and where his company is headed.

Transitioning from a private company CEO to a public company CEO has been eye opening, Berger says on the podcast, joking that he now has to watch what he says. But change is ultimately something Berger says he embraces.

"I really look at myself and how I can change myself," Berger says. "I'm a different CEO today than I was 12 months ago, and hopefully I'll be a different CEO in 12 months, because the company demands it." Read more and stream the episode here.

Mary Beth Snodgrass, co-founder of Healthiby

Mary Beth Snodgrass is convinced she can help people make life-enhancing changes that affect health and financial situations because, well, science.

The co-founder of Healthiby created the platform to use financial incentives to drive positive health and wellness decisions. The Houston company is in pilot mode but has plans to expand.

"What we're really focused on this year is, in addition to our incentives, digital content and coach guidance, is making sure that participants are engaging among themselves," Snodgrass tells InnovationMap. "Science shows there are benefits to surrounding yourself with other people who share similar health goals." Read more.

Gene Austin, CEO of Quorum Software

Photo courtesy of Quorum

A new CEO is tasked with exponential growth at a Houston-based software company. Gene Austin joined Houston-based Quorum Software last year at a time of rapid M&A activity.

The energy industry software solutions provider, which is a portfolio company of California-based private equity firm Thoma Bravo LLC since 2018, has big plans to continue the exponential growth with more acquisitions that diversify their portfolio of services and a Houston office expansion later this year. According to Austin, he expects this growth spurred by M&A activity to double Quorum's revenue of $200 million in the next 3 to 5 years.

"We are always thinking about how to best serve our customers," Austin says. "We've made millions of dollars of investments in our support organization and cloud team services that are foundational to reinvigorate innovation and help our customers see how the future can unfold for them." Read more.

Healthiby's motto is "health is wealth." Getty Images

Houston health and wellness startup uses money as a motivator for lifestyle changes

health is wealth

Everything is different when money is on the line, and a Houston startup is using financial incentives as a motivator for its users to make smart, healthy lifestyle changes to enhance their wellness.

Healthiby, a cost-effective wellness program, is changing the game of health solutions by addressing chronic and pre-chronic conditions through innovative prevention and management methods, all incentivized by both short-term and long-term financial benefits.

"Healthiby incentivizes and empowers people to achieve better health outcomes in a team context," says Mary Beth Snodgrass, managing director and co-founder. "We're different from other wellness solutions because we're focused on changing habits, as well as incentivizing better health outcomes, providing both immediate and long-term rewards."

The company launched in May 2019 and is still in its pilot stage. Snodgrass and co-founder Dr. Tristan Hartzell, a surgeon based in Nebraska, have remained committed to their foundational concept for their startup, which is to empower people on their wellness journeys and spread knowledge about the financial benefits of leading a healthy lifestyle.

Mary Beth Snodgrass (pictured) founded Healthiby with Nebraska-based surgeon Dr. Tristan Hartzell. Photo courtesy of Healthiby.

Healthiby's notion that "health is wealth" relates to the idea that engaging in a healthy lifestyle will ultimately benefit individuals financially long-term, as healthcare costs can be avoided. Essentially, Healthiby qualifies health goals as preventative measures for chronic and pre-chronic diseases. Not only does Healthiby inform its users about the long-term financial benefits of healthy living, the program introduces exciting contests in which users are eligible to win financial rewards if they meet certain health-related criteria.

In time for the start of the new year and the health-related resolutions buzz, Healthiby enacts their user-friendly digital software application, social programs, expert health advice and financial incentives to serve their goal-oriented consumers with an engaging health management regiment that is sure to keep them on track throughout the year.

"What we're really focused on this year is, in addition to our incentives, digital content and coach guidance, is making sure that participants are engaging among themselves," Snodgrass tells InnovationMap. "Science shows there are benefits to surrounding yourself with other people who share similar health goals."

In what the program's founders refer to as a "wellness rewards solution," users are able to tap into the Healthiby digital platform to track their progress, participate in social wellness groups, invest in long-term financial incentives and access digestible, cutting edge wellness literature; all components of Healthiby's "journey goals," the program's building blocks to achieving a healthy lifestyle.

"Our software application manages our contests and our rewards, but we also have a very social component, in which participants are meeting online regularly with a dietician coach," Snodgrass explains. "The reason for this is because when we're talking about chronic and pre-chronic conditions, it's important for people to have a strong understanding of how these issues affect the body and what kinds of lifestyle changes are most effective at helping people better manage or reverse them."

Photo courtesy of Healthiby

For an annual minimum of $8 each month, individual consumers have the opportunity to invest in their own long-term wellness through this interactive, user-friendly health progress program.

"Healthiby is providing a really low cost solution for people to get additional social motivation, information, and incentives so that they can stick with their goals throughout the year," Snodgrass said.

Healthiby is currently available to individual consumers in Texas, but its founders have their sights set on expanding the business and sharing their solutions to companies vested in the importance of healthy living for their employees. For now, Houston's health and wellness consumers just got richer — both physically and financially — when Healthiby opened its digital doors to the city.

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New report ranks Texas among top 10 states where AI could disrupt jobs

AI Workforce

A new nationwide report examining where AI could "reshape" the most jobs has ranked Texas No. 9 among the most at-risk states for AI job disruption.

The new SmartAsset report compared all 50 states and the District of Columbia to calculate the estimated percent of the workforce employed in the 26 occupations with the highest AI exposure, as determined by June 2026 research by the Virginia Economic Information and Analytics Division.

The findings revealed that 500,000 Texas workers, or 3.55 percent of the total workforce, are employed in occupations with "high exposure to potential AI disruption."

This also places the Lone Star State as the 9th most at-risk state in the U.S. where AI exposure can lead to "declining hiring demand, wage pressure, task automation, and other forms of disruption."

"States with larger concentrations of highly exposed occupations could experience more pronounced labor-market changes, particularly in roles where core tasks are more vulnerable to AI-driven restructuring," the report's author wrote.

Texas' biggest cities, like Houston and Austin, are known for their thriving tech and business industries, and the study noted that many of the occupations within those sectors are the most at risk. The Virginia Economic Information and Analytics Division said the top five most AI-exposed occupations in the U.S. are: mathematicians, proofreaders, correspondence clerks, court reporters, and media and communication workers. Additionally, computer programmers, database administrators, web developers, telephone operators, and communications equipment operators round out the top 10 most at-risk positions.

These are the 16 remaining occupations most exposed to AI disruption, in order:

  • Data Entry Keyers
  • Statistical Assistants
  • Office Support Workers
  • Interpreters and Translators
  • Database Architects
  • Software Quality Assurance Analysts
  • Medical Transcriptionists
  • Software Developers
  • Writers and Authors
  • Payroll Clerks
  • Web Designers
  • Miscellaneous Computer Occupations
  • Insurance Claims Processors
  • Telemarketers
  • Computer Numerically Controlled Tool Programmers
  • Bookkeeping and Accounting Clerks

A separate SmartAsset report from April 2026 found about 20.5 percent of Texas workers use AI to do their jobs in some capacity. That trend will continue to shift further as employers and employees choose to adopt — or reject — AI implementation.

Across the U.S., Washington topped the list as the state with the highest concentration of AI-exposed jobs, with nearly 5.7 percent of the state's workforce employed in the 26 most at-risk positions. SmartAsset said Washington's high prevalence of technology companies is a significant factor that skyrocketed the state to the top of the list.

"Home to major technology companies including Microsoft, Amazon, T-Mobile and Expedia, the state has large numbers of computer programmers and software developers, two occupations with high exposure," the report said.

Meanwhile, Mississippi ranked No. 51 with the lowest concentration of AI-exposed jobs in the nation. About 22,500 workers in Mississippi, or 1.93 percent of its workforce, are at risk for AI disruption.

The top 10 states where AI could reshape the most jobs are:

  • No. 1 – Washington
  • No. 2 – Virginia
  • No. 3 – District of Columbia
  • No. 4 – California
  • No. 5 – Utah
  • No. 6 – Maryland
  • No. 7 – Colorado
  • No. 8 – New Hampshire
  • No. 9 – Texas
  • No. 10 – North Carolina
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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

UH lands $1.2M NIH grant to fight superbugs using AI, quantum sensing

drug defense

The fight against antibiotic-resistant bacteria like MRSA is getting science fiction-like upgrades at the University of Houston thanks to a new four-year, $1.26 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

The university says the recent funding brings total federal support up to $3.5 million for 11 years for the project, which uses AI and quantum-sensing technology to better understand how bacterial proteins develop resistance to drugs.

Any medical professional will tell you that one of the worst things that can happen is almost killing an infection. Bacteria that survive attacks from conventional antibiotic treatments emerge tougher, more resistant and more aggressive than before–making them much harder to treat. A good example is the superbug methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

UH chemistry professors Yuhong Wang and Shoujun Xu are working on this issue. They know full well that fighting superbugs requires new technology and new approaches, which is what they aim to pioneer with their new grant.

“Drug-resistant bacterial infections such as MRSA are becoming harder to treat, creating an urgent need for faster ways to understand how antibiotics and other small molecules interact with bacterial proteins,” Wang said in a news release.

Wang and Xu’s work centers around GTP, a cellular fuel that can cause tiny changes to a cell's structure when it mutates. Sometimes, those shape changes make it easier for drugs to breach the wall and attack the cells.

The UH scientists are employing AlphaFold, an AI-powered tool that can scan large molecular libraries in seconds. From these models, they can see promising drug combinations for future testing.

Once identified, the team uses their invention, super-resolution force spectroscopy, to monitor the cells. Tiny magnetic beads are attached to genetic material, then magnified to see how strong that material is when pulled. They can measure this incredible microscopic process through an atomic magnetometer, typically used in quantum physics. Combined, all these tools allow a high-definition look at how each molecule might respond to new chemical approaches.

“We're the only chemists in the world that use an atomic magnetometer for biological research,” Xu said. “It's a technique developed by physicists, and there is usually a gap between techniques developed by physicists and biological applications. Yuhong and I have been bridging that gap together for the past 10 years.”

Eventually, Wang and Xu hope to develop powerful software that can be used by drug manufacturers to model cellular responses. With enough predictive data, the software could even get ahead of superbugs’ own mutation, allowing drugs to be developed before new strains arrive.

"We want an algorithm where you input a protein sequence, score the mutation hotspots, and develop new inhibitors before a drug-resistant species even emerges," Wang added.

SpaceX to get more than 700 acres of Texas wildlife refuge in land swap

Space News

A federal judge on Monday, September 21, refused to block the Trump administration from giving SpaceX more than 700 acres of wildlife refuge as part of a land swap in Texas, while environmental groups vowed to continue their legal challenge.

U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. declined the plaintiffs' request for a preliminary injunction to prevent the parcel exchange, saying they failed to prove it would worsen ecological risks to a Gulf Coast region already transformed by billionaire Elon Musk’s rocket operations.

In June, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved moving forward with the deal with SpaceX, which would surrender 683 acres the company owns in exchange for the federal land in the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. The 103,000-acre refuge spans four counties along the Texas border and is home to animal habitats and historical landmarks.

Maps show the land SpaceX would acquire would be closer to the company's launchpad near the U.S.-Mexico border.

The swap amounts to a gift of public lands to SpaceX, “clearing the way for bulldozers to tear into this wildlife refuge as soon as next week and turn a public treasure into a private payday,” said Laiken Jordahl, a spokesperson with the Center for Biological Diversity, which filed the lawsuit alongside other opponents including tribal groups. Jordahl said Monday that the litigation will continue even as the exchange goes forward.

“This court order is not the final word. These lands hold incredible spiritual, historical and conservation value for the people and wildlife of South Texas. We won’t stop fighting to keep this irreplaceable public wildlife refuge safe from SpaceX bulldozers,” Jordahl said in a statement.

The lawsuit asks the federal court to halt the exchange, which has worried SpaceX opponents in the area who have long criticized the company's expanding footprint over lost access to beaches and concerns over exploding rockets.

The Fish and Wildlife Service didn’t respond to a request for comment on Monday’s decision. Previously, a spokesperson had said the agency does not comment on ongoing litigation.

The agency issued a final environmental assessment report in June that determined the exchange would cause no significant impact to the area. The report said the federal government believed the acquisition would represent a “net conservation benefit” and provide “substantial long-term conservation value and improving landscape-scale habitat connectivity across refuges in South Texas.”

The judge said that the plaintiffs offered “relatively weak” evidence of environmental harm.

“While they rightfully argue that the preservation of wildlife and historical lands furthers the public interest, they present no evidence demonstrating that the Property will suffer aesthetic, environmental, cultural, or historical degradation during the pendency of this lawsuit,” Rodriguez wrote in his ruling.

In addition, the judge said a preliminary injunction would result in modifications to SpaceX’s development plans, “placing additional hardship on the company’s ability to meet milestones and contractual obligations.”

SpaceX did not return an email seeking comment on the judge's ruling.

The space exploration company first broke ground in Texas more than a decade ago and has expanded rapidly, so much that SpaceX employees last year voted to incorporate their own local government called Starbase.

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