Houston innovators recognized at annual regional entrepreneur competition

Meet the winners

The 11 executives now will move on to national Entrepreneur Of The Year program. National winners will be named in November. Photos courtesy

Eleven Houston-based executives have been crowned regional winners in the Entrepreneur Of The Year program, run by professional services firm EY.

The 11 executives now will move on to national Entrepreneur Of The Year program. National winners will be named in November.

“Every year, we are completely blown away by the accomplishments of our Entrepreneur Of The Year Regional Award winners, and 2023 is no different,” AJ Jordan, director of the Entrepreneur Of The Year program for EY Americas, says in a news release. “They are change-makers and champions of business and community, and we are so proud to be honoring them. We can’t wait to see how these leaders will continue to improve lives and disrupt industries.”

Here are the 11 local winners from the program’s Gulf South region.

Steve Altemus, president and CEO of Intuitive Machines

Intuitive Machines, founded in 2013, is a publicly traded space exploration company. The company’s upcoming mission will send the first U.S. spacecraft to the moon since 1972 as well as the first-ever commercial lunar lander. Its Nova-C spacecraft will carry commercial and NASA payloads.

Earlier this year, a joint venture led by Intuitive Machines nabbed a contract valued at up to $719 million for work on NASA’s Joint Polar Satellite System. The company, which went public in February 2023, forecasts revenue of $174 million to $268 million this year.

“Steve’s visionary mindset and ability to assemble and inspire a talented team have been instrumental in our collective success,” the company says in a statement about the Entrepreneur Of The Year award. “He consistently fosters a culture of excellence, empowering our diverse group of engineers, scientists, and visionaries to pioneer groundbreaking solutions and deliver outstanding results.”

Gaurab Chakrabarti, co-founder and CEO of Solugen, and Sean Hunt, co-founder and CTO

Solugen, founded in 2016, makes and distributes specialty chemicals derived from feedstock. The startup is reportedly valued at more than $2 billion. To date, Solugen has raised $642.2 million, according to Crunchbase.

In naming Solugen one of the most innovative companies of 2022, Fast Company noted that the carbon-negative process embraced by Solugen and the startup’s “ability to sell flexible amounts of chemicals to companies looking to lower their own footprint have helped the company make inroads in a traditionally slow-moving industry.”

Daryl Dudum and Matthew Hadda, founders and co-CEOs of Specialty1 Partners

Specialty1 Partners, which launched in 2019, supplies business services to dental surgery practices. These services include HR, recruiting, payroll, accounting, operations, marketing, business development, compliance, IT, and legal.

In 2022, Specialty1 Partners appeared at No. 72 on the Inc. 5000 list with two-year revenue growth of 2,921 percent.

“Supporting our partners and helping them grow while continuing to build partnerships with industry-leading, innovative surgical specialists is what we focus on every day,” Dudum says in a 2022 news release. “It’s not just about growing our network — we are committed to helping our partner practices grow and succeed on their terms.”

Ludmila Golovine, president and CEO of MasterWord Services

MasterWord Services offers translation and interpretation in more than 400 languages for customers such as energy, health care, and tech companies. The woman-owned business was founded in 1993.

“I’m grateful to our exceptional team and to each of our translators and interpreters who every day live our mission of connecting people across language and culture,” Golovine says in a news release about the Entrepreneur Of The Year honor.

Roger Jenkins, president and CEO of Murphy Oil

Murphy Oil is involved in oil and natural gas exploration and production primarily onshore in the U.S. and Canada, and offshore along the Gulf of Mexico. The publicly traded Fortune 1000 company, founded in 1944, racked up revenue of nearly $4 billion in 2022.

“Over the years, the company has grown and evolved to become a leading independent energy company, with strategic assets around the world,” Murphy says on its website. “All the while, we have remained true to our mission — to challenge the norm, tap into our strong legacy, and use our foresight and financial discipline to deliver inspired energy solutions.

Mohammad Millwala, founder and CEO of DM Clinical Research

DM Clinical Research, founded in 2006, runs 13 sites for clinical trials. Its areas of specialty include vaccines, internal medicine, pediatrics, gastrointestinal, psychiatry, and women’s health.

“DM Clinical Research is in a period of rapid growth with multiple new study sites added over the last two years in addition to the quadrupling of our staff to over 500 employees,” Millwala says in a January 2023 news release. “We expect this transformational growth trajectory to continue for the foreseeable future, on the road to becoming the leading independent clinical research network in the nation.”

Mark Walker, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Direct Digital Holdings, and Keith Smith, co-founder and president

Publicly traded Direct Digital Holdings owns three operating companies that offer online platforms for advertising. Three years after its founding in 2018, the company became the ninth Black-owned business to go public in the U.S.

The company posted revenue of $88 million in 2022, up 131 percent from the previous year.

“Direct Digital Holdings’ success is rooted in the hard work and commitment we have long seen in taking advantage of advertising opportunities targeting underserved communities and [that] markets often overlook,” Smith says in a news release about the Entrepreneur Of The Year award.

Omair Tariq, co-founder and CEO of Cart.com

While technically headquartered in Austin, Houston-funded Cart.com's co-founder and CEO, Omair Tariq, also was a Gulf South winner in the Entrepreneur Of The Year program.

The e-commerce company moved its headquarters from Houston to Austin in 2021. However, Tariq remains in Houston. In May 2023, Tariq delivered the commencement address to MBA recipients from Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business, where he earned his MBA.

Cart.com, founded in 2020, offers software and services to thousands of online merchants. To date, the pre-IPO company has raised $421 million in funding, according to Crunchbase.

“We want to be the commerce-enablement infrastructure for the largest brands in the world,” Tariq told the Insider news website in 2022.

From Your Site Articles

This week's Houston innovators to know are hoping to make an impact. Courtesy photos

3 Houston innovators to know this week

Who's who

Starting off a new — hopefully drier — week in Houston, these three Houston innovators to know are looking to make an impact. From using tech for good to creating a women's movement in Texas business, these three Houstonians are on a roll.

Cristen Reat, co-founder and program director at BridgingApps

BridgingApps, a program backed by Easter Seals of Greater Houston, uses technology like iPads to help provide services for children and adults with disabilities — as well as for veterans — and their families. Courtesy of BridgingApps

At the cusp of the tablet generation, Cristen Reat saw her child, who had down syndrome, and this convenient emerging technology and connected the dots. She helped start a support group in a therapy clinic where many parents were interested about why mobile devices and apps were so engaging to their children.

"We were just amazed about how our children with different types of disabilities were engaged with the devices, were able to communicate with the devices, and were making big strides in their therapy," says Reat.

BridgingApps was founded by Reat and Sami Rahman in 2010, both seeking to help their children grow. The program became a part of Easter Seals of Greater Houston in 2011. The website currently boasts over 3,000 apps which users can sort through by category, age, price, skill, grade level, mobile device, and more. The apps are also able to benefit and treat veterans and their families. Read more about Reat and the BridgingApps program here.

Charley Donaldson, co-founder and COO of CaringBand

CaringBand is using a simple technology to better connect family and friends to the ones they love. Courtesy of CaringBand

When Charley Donaldson's mother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer, he and his wife knew they were in for a tough time. What they didn't realize was how important communication was going to be with each other. The ability to check in with loved ones frequently is tough — whether it's a good day or a bad day, people are busy and picking up the phone can be time consuming.

"It's like, you want to show people that you care about them, but you don't want to interrupt their day, or you don't want to be a burden to them if they aren't up to company," Donaldson says.

CaringBand is a light-up bracelet that's Bluetooth enabled, and connects to a mobile app. A person gives the bracelet to a loved one, who then pairs it with his or her smartphone. App users can send and receive pre-set messages of encouragement to and from other app users. Those wearing a CaringBand bracelet get alerted by a blinking light or vibration that lets them know someone is thinking about them. The wearer then reads these encouraging messages on the CaringBand app when convenient and with no need to respond. Read more about the Houston company connecting loved ones.

Ludmila Golovine, president and CEO of MasterWord Services Inc. and a founding member of Women in Localization's Texas Chapter

Ludmila Golovine, president and CEO of MasterWord Services Inc. and a founding member of newly formed Women in Localization's Texas Chapter, writes on the importance of localization. Courtesy of Golovine

Your business message is only as good as the receiver's ability to understand it. Localization is extremely important for business growth, and Ludmila Golovine, president and CEO of MasterWord Services Inc., wrote a guest article for InnovationMap about this importance as it pertains to the digital age.

"Opening a website or an app that wasn't intended for you can feel a lot like being lost in another country: you cannot understand the street signs, everything is different, and you don't even know how to ask a question of where to go," she writes.

Golovine is a founding member of newly formed Women in Localization's Texas Chapter. The organization is hosting its first Houston panel and networking event on Tuesday, September 24, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Station Houston. Read Golovine's guest article here.

Using tech in the localization process is key in growing businesses in a diverse city like Houston

Guest column

Today we live in a world where we not only do business globally, but where our local communities are becoming increasingly more international. And yet, we don't always market to prospective clients' local preferences. Opening a website or an app that wasn't intended for you can feel a lot like being lost in another country: you cannot understand the street signs, everything is different, and you don't even know how to ask a question of where to go.

Localization has come to define the process by which we adapt information and products to offer them to new markets and regions, the end goal being to give a product the look and feel of having been created specifically for a target market, no matter the language, culture, or location. CNN knows that there are more than 58 million Latinos in the U.S. who want their own Spanish language shows. Domino's Pizza has an extremely flexible localization strategy where they regularly update their menu and topping choices to incorporate local tastes and food preferences. These are prime examples of localization.

In 2014, Common Sense Advisory, a major independent research company, published a report titled "Can't Read: Won't Buy." The report summarized responses of 3,000+ consumers across 10 countries regarding their buying preferences. According to the report, 75 percent of consumers said they were more likely to purchase goods and services if the product information was in their native language, and 56.2 percent of consumers said that the ability to obtain information in their own language was more important than price.

As most brands have growth on their mind, the significance of personalization and localized marketing cannot be underestimated. It is not only global or international corporations that benefit from localization. Domestically, it is estimated that that 30 percent of the U.S. population will be Hispanic by 2042, and the buying power of minorities in the U.S. is continuing to increase.

For many companies, success depends on capturing market share in communities that don't speak English and don't necessarily relate to our nuanced culture. Overall, today businesses competing in a world of more than 7,000 spoken languages face increasing pressure to have the right language strategy in place to properly capture their desired market share, serve customers, and attract and retain experienced talent worldwide.

Website and app localization are among the more frequently sought services. With websites and apps available in multiple languages with modified content to suit the preferences of a particular market, adapted graphic design and geographic references, units of measure, proper local formats for dates, addresses and phone numbers for instance, businesses achieve:

Increased credibility as consumers find reassurance and comfort when information is accurately portrayed in their preferred language;

Enhanced customer engagement and retention as customers are attracted and loyalty is developed when information is provided in their native language. In fact, research confirms that most consumers would pay extra if the information was available in their native language;

Improved brand recognition as consumers are much more likely to identify with a brand they can relate to, one that shares information in their preferred language through website content, marketing and promotional materials or when providing customer service; and

More efficient SEO as multilingual content helps drive more traffic to websites. Leveraging SEO keywords may provide a competitive challenge in English, but in languages other than English, there is significantly less competition.

To attain a global reach, or to expand into diverse local communities right here in Houston, localization is an effective way to broaden the market and reach more customers, starting here in our multi-cultural city.

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Ludmila Golovine is the president and CEO of MasterWord Services Inc. and a founding member of newly formed Women in Localization's Texas Chapter. The organization is hosting its first Houston panel and networking event on Tuesday, September 24, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Station Houston (1301 Fannin Street, Suite 2440).

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Houston shines among top 10 tech metros in the South, study says

Tops in Tech

A study analyzing top U.S. locales for the tech industry ranked Houston the No. 9 best tech hub in the South.

The report by commercial real estate platform CommercialCafe examined the top 20 Southern metros across nine metrics, such as the growth rates of tech establishments and employment, median tech earnings, a quality of life index, and more.

Like other Texas metros, the study attributes Houston's tech powerhouse status to its growing presence of major tech companies. However, Houston leads the nation with the highest number of patents granted between 2020 and 2024.

"The second-largest metro by population in the South, Houston led the region with an impressive 8,691 tech patent grants in the last five years," the report said. "Once synonymous with oil, Houston is increasingly making its mark as a cleantech hub — and patents reflect this shift."

Houston also experienced an impressive 14 percent growth in tech establishments, with nearly 500 new tech companies moving to the metro. An impressive 32 percent job growth rate also accompanied this change, with over 30,500 tech jobs added between 2019 and 2023.

Here's how Houston stacked up across the remaining five rankings:

No. 11 – Tech establishment density
No. 15 – Median tech earnings
No. 19 – Median tech earnings growth
No. 20 – Tech job density
No. 20 – Quality of life index

In a separate 2024 report, Houston was the No. 22 best tech city nationwide, showing that the city is certainly making efforts to improve its friendliness toward the tech industry in 2025.

Other top Texas tech hubs in the South
The only other Texas metros to earn spots in the report were Austin (No. 1) and Dallas-Fort Worth (No. 4). Most notably, CommercialCafe says Austin saw a 25 percent increase in tech company density from 2019 to 2023, which is the third-highest growth rate out of all 20 metros.

"Moreover, the metro’s tech scene thrives on a diverse range of segments, including AI and green energy (bolstered by the University of Texas), as well as globally recognized events like [South by Southwest]," the report says. "Thus, with tech companies accounting for more than half of all office leasing activity in 2024, Austin remains a magnet for innovation, talent and investment."

Dallas, on the other hand, has a far greater diversity when it comes to its tech sector and its thriving economic opportunities.

"Not to be outdone, Dallas-Fort Worth moved up from sixth to fourth in this year’s rankings, driven by a 25.9 percent growth in tech company presence — the second-highest increase among the top 20 metros," the report said. "For instance, companies like iRely (which relocated to Irving, Texas) and Diversified (now in Plano, Texas) have joined homegrown successes, such as StackPath and Bestow."

The top 10 best tech metros in the South are:

No. 1 – Washington, D.C.
No. 2 – Austin, Texas
No. 3 – Raleigh, North Carolina
No. 4 – Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas
No. 5 – Huntsville, Alabama
No. 6 – Baltimore, Maryland
No. 7 – Durham, North Carolina
No. 8 – Atlanta, Georgia
No. 9 – Houston, Texas
No. 10 – Charlotte, North Carolina

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

Houston startup, researchers awarded millions to develop Brain Mesh implant

brain health

Houston startup Motif Neurotech and several Rice research groups have been selected by the United Kingdom's Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) to participate in its inaugural Precision Neurotechnologies program. The program aims to develop advanced brain-interfacing technologies for cognitive and psychiatric conditions.

ARIA will invest $84.2 million over four years in projects that “explore and unlock new methods to interface with the human brain at the circuit level,” according to a news release.

Three of the four Rice labs will collaborate with Houston health tech startup Motif Neurotech to develop Brain Mesh, which is a distributed network of minimally invasive implants that can stimulate neural circuits and stream neural data in real time. The project has been awarded approximately $5.9 million.

Motif Neurotech was spun out of the Rice lab of Jacob Robinson, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and bioengineering and CEO of Motif Neurotech. It will be developed in collaboration with U.K.-based startup MintNeuro, which will help develop custom integrated circuits that will help to miniaturize the implants, according to a separate release.

Robinson will lead the system and network integration and encapsulation efforts for Mesh Points implants. According to Rice, these implants, about the size of a grain of rice, will track and modulate brain states and be embedded in the skull through relatively low-risk surgery.

The Rice lab of Valentin Dragoi, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rice and the Rosemary and Daniel J. Harrison III Presidential Distinguished Chair in Neuroprosthetics at Houston Methodist, will conduct non-human primate experimental models for Brain Mesh. Kaiyuan Yang, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering who leads the Secure and Intelligent Micro-Systems Lab at Rice, will work on power and data pipeline development to enable the functional miniaturization of the Mesh Points.

“Current neurotechnologies are limited in scale, specificity and compatibility with human use,” Robinson said in a news release. “The Brain Mesh will be a precise, scalable system for brain-state monitoring and modulation across entire neural circuits designed explicitly for human translation. Our team brings together a key set of capabilities and the expertise to not only work through the technical and scientific challenges but also to steward this technology into clinical trials and beyond.”

The fourth Rice lab, led by assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering Jerzy Szablowski, will collaborate with researchers from three universities and two industry partners to develop closed-loop, self-regulating gene therapy for dysfunctional brain circuits. The team is backed by an award of approximately $2.3 million.

“Our goal is to develop a method for returning neural circuits involved in neuropsychiatric illnesses such as epilepsy, schizophrenia, dementia, etc. to normal function and maybe even make them more resilient,” Szablowski said in a news release.

Neurological disorders in the U.K. have a roughly $5.4 billion economic burden, and some estimates run as high as $800 billion annually in terms of economic disruptions in the U.S. These conditions are the leading cause of illness and disability with over one in three people impacted according to the World Health Organization.

Electricity startup expands to Houston with promise of backup battery power

Power Up

An Austin startup that sells electricity and couples it with backup power has entered the Houston market.

Base Power, which claims to be the first and only electricity provider to offer a backup battery, now serves the Houston-area territory served by Houston-based CenterPoint Energy. No solar equipment is required for Base Power’s backup batteries.

The company is initially serving customers in the Cy-Fair, Spring, Cinco Ranch and Mission Bend communities, and will expand to other Houston-area places in the future.

Base Power already serves customers in the Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth markets.

The company says it provides “a cost-effective alternative to generators and solar-battery systems in an increasingly unreliable power grid.”

“Houston represents one of the largest home backup markets in the world, largely due to dramatic weather events that strain the power grid,” says Base Power co-founder and CEO Zach Dell, son of tech billionaire Michael Dell. “We’re eager to provide an accessible energy service that delivers affordable, reliable power to Houston homeowners.”

After paying a $495 or $995 fee that covers installation and permitting, and a $16- or $29-per-month membership fee, Base Power customers gain access to a backup battery and competitive energy rates, the company says. The startup is waiving the $495 setup fee for the first 500 Houston-area homeowners who sign up and make a refundable deposit.

With the Base Power backup package, electricity costs 14.3 cents per kilowatt-hour, which includes Base Power’s 8.5 cents per kilowatt-hour charge and rates charged by CenterPoint. The average electric customer in Houston pays 13 cents per kilowatt-hour, according to EnergySage.

“Base Power is built to solve a problem that so many Texans face: consistent power,” says Justin Lopas, co-founder and chief operating officer of Base Power and a former SpaceX engineer. “Houstonians can now redefine how they power their homes, while also improving the existing power grid.”

Founded in 2023, Base Power has attracted funding from investors such as Thrive Capital, Valor Equity Partners, Altimeter Capital, Trust Ventures, and Terrain. Zach Dell was previously an associate on the investment team at Thrive Capital.

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

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