2024 Houston Innovation Awards names esteemed judges for annual program

meet the decision makers

Here's who's calling the shots for the 2024 Houston Innovation Awards. Photos courtesy

Ten Houstonians are in the hot seat for deciding the best companies and individuals in Houston's innovation ecosystem.

InnovationMap has announced its 2024 Houston Innovation Awards judging panel, which includes startup founders, nonprofit leaders, investors, corporate innovators, and more. In addition to the 10 judges, InnovationMap Editor Natalie Harms will serve as the editorial representative on the judging panel.

The selected judges will evaluate applications from the nearly 300 nominations that were submitted this year. The judges will be using their expertise to evaluate the nominees' applications, which are due to InnovationMap this week.

Read about this year's judges below, and don't forget to secure your tickets to the November 14 event to see who the panel selects as the winners for the annual celebration of Houston innovation.



Angela Wilkins, chief data officer at Starling Medical

Houston data scientist joins medical device startup amid AI evolution in the sectorAngela Wilkins joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss the intersection of data and health care. Photo courtesy

Angela Wilkins has had a decade-long career in data science in business and academia and now oversees data science for Houston health tech company Starling Medical. She founded Mercury Data Science, which became OmniScience, and previously ran Rice University's Ken Kennedy Institute as executive director.

Brad Burke, associate vice president for industry and new ventures at Rice University's Office of Innovation and executive director of the Rice Alliance

The 2023 recipient of the Trailblazer Award, Brad Burke returns to the Houston Innovation Awards as a judge. For over 20 years, he's led the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship, and recently took on a new leadership role within the university's growing Office of Innovation.

Calicia Johnson, senior product manager at Xbox and co-lead for Black at Xbox at Microsoft

Calicia Johnson is a leader within Microsoft's Houston office, especially when it comes to representing and encouraging diversity. She was named the winner of the 2023 DEI Champion award at the Houston Innovation Awards. Prior to Xbox, she worked for nearly 10 years in oil and gas with the bulk of that time at Chevron.

Emily Cisek, CEO and founder of The Postage

Last year, Emily Cisek's company, The Postage, a secure life planning and small business succession platform, was a finalist in three Houston Innovation Awards categories, winning the award for Female-Founded Business. She returns as a judge as her company continues to grow.

Grace Rodriguez, CEO and executive director of Impact Hub Houston

Grace Rodriguez was a judge for the inaugural Houston Innovation Awards in 2021, and she returns to judge the awards in accordance to her mission of helping "do gooders do greater." In addition to leading Impact Hub Houston, she is a board member of the City of Houston Office of Business Opportunity and is on the Board of Directors for Downtown Houston.

Joey Sanchez, founder of Cup of Joey

As the 2024 Ecosystem Builder award recipient, Joey Sanchez has worked for years leading Houston innovation, including as senior director of ecosystems at the Ion Houston and director of corporate engagement at Houston Exponential. He's now growing his startup, Cup of Joey, a weekly coffee meetup organization, across Houston.

Jon Nordby, managing partner at investment firm Anthropy Partners and founder of EconWerx

For years, Jon Nordby has been a champion of Houston innovation in his previous leadership roles at Houston Exponential, MassChallenge, and the Greater Houston Partnership. A former Houston Innovation Awards judge from 2021, he now works hands on with startups and organizations looking to grow an innovation ecosystem.

Margarita Kelrikh, counsel at Pillsbury

As counsel in Pillsbury's Houston office, Margarita Kelrikh has supported the firm's growing startup clients since her appointment earlier this year. Prior to joining the firm, she held in-house counsel positions at a few companies, including WeWork. She received her bachelor's degree at the University of Chicago and her law degree at Columbia School of Law.

Pedro Silva, co-founder of Milkify

Pedro Silva co-founded Milkify, a freeze-drying breastmilk service, with his wife, Berkley Luck, and the company has appeared on Shark Tank and won last year's BIPOC-Founded Business Award.

Wade Pinder, founder of Product Houston

As the 2023 Mentor of the Year winner, Wade Pinder has mentored countless Houston startups and has decades of experience in product development — most recently through his own company, Product Houston.

Editorial judge: Natalie Harms, editor of InnovationMap

For the fourth year, Natalie Harms will represent InnovationMap on the annual awards judging panel as the founding editor of InnovationMap the host of the Houston Innovators Podcast.

She reports on innovation and technology for InnovationMap and on energy transition for EnergyCapitalHTX — and their impact on the city of Houston. A Houston native, she's worked as a business journalist for almost a decade and has a degree in journalism from the University of Houston and a certificate in publishing from New York University.

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Join the Houston Innovation Awards on November 8 at Silver Street Studios. Photo by K. Mamou Photography

Sneak peek: Previewing the Houston Innovation Awards

HOUSTON INNOVATORS PODCAST EPISODE 210

The Houston Innovation Awards is just one week away, and in the latest episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast, InnovationMap Editor Natalie Harms shares what attendees need to know about joining in on the festivities on November 8.

Listen to the episode and secure your tickets below, and stay tuned into the editorial series to learn more about this year's honorees.



Here's who's making the call for the inaugural InnovationMap Awards. Photos courtesy

InnovationMap names judges for inaugural awards program

in the hot seat

It's been two weeks since InnovationMap announced its inaugural awards program presented by Techwave — and the ecosystem is already buzzing with excitement to find out the top innovative companies in town.

The InnovationMap Awards will honor Houston's innovators and their breakthrough technologies across industries. The program and hybrid event — which will take place September 8 — will shine a spotlight on the movers and shakers within Houston's burgeoning innovation community. Nominations are open for the awards now — and the deadline to submit your nomination is July 23.

Click here to nominate a deserving company.

But who will decide this year's finalists and winners for the event? A cohort of eight of the best innovation leaders in the Bayou City. Introducing: The 2021 InnovationMap Awards judges:

Juliana Garaizar, head of Greentown Houston and vice president of Greentown Labs

Courtesy photo

A longtime angel investor and Houston innovation leader, Juliana Garaizar is no stranger to the local ecosystem. Prior to her current role leading Greentown Labs in Houston, she served as director of the Texas Medical Center's Venture Fund and managing director at the Houston Angel Network. She's also involved with Houston-based Business Angel Minority Association, or baMa, and has worked with Portfolia for over five years.

Jon Nordby, managing director at MassChallenge

Photo courtesy of MassChallenge

​A leader in Houston innovation for several years now, Jon Nordby oversees Boston-based MassChallenge's entire Texas operation. MassChallenge's global accelerator program supports an annual cohort of startups across industries. Prior to his current role, he served as director of strategy at Houston Exponential and vice president of talent and innovation at the Greater Houston Partnership.

Grace Rodriguez, CEO and executive director of Impact Hub Houston

Photo courtesy of Impact Hub Houston

Grace Rodriguez has dedicated herself to helping do-gooders do greater, as her LinkedIn page proudly boasts, and for the past three years, she's been doing that by leading Impact Hub Houston, a locally rooted, globally connected 501c3 nonprofit that champions inclusive, impact-driven innovation. She also co-founded Station Houston in 2016.

Emily Reiser, senior manager of innovation community engagement at the Texas Medical Center

Photo courtesy of TMC Innovation

Emily Reiser is like a switchboard operator for TMC Innovation, where she's worked with health tech startups since 2019. She supports clinicians, innovators, corporate partners, and business advisers who are dedicated to advancing healthcare innovation all while providing a common ground for collaboration, connection, and innovation.

Serafina Lalany, vice president of operations at Houston Exponential

Photo courtesy of Serafina Lalany

Serafina Lalany leads operations at Houston Exponential, the city's nonprofit focused on accelerating the development of Houston's innovation economy. She's also a board member of Diversity Fund Houston — a micro venture fund created to invest in minority tech founders during the "friends and family round."

Alex Gras, managing director at The Cannon

Photo via LinkedIn

After spending eight years in oil and gas, Alex Gras took his management skills to The Cannon Houston — a network of entrepreneurial hubs across Houston. The Cannon is the InnovationMap Awards venue for the September 8 event.

Rajasekhar Gummadapu, CEO of Techwave

Photo courtesy

Raj Gummadapu is the co-founder of Techwave, the award program's presenting sponsor. An accountant by trade, he has about 17 years of experience with combination of working with "big 5" consulting companies and various midsize to Fortune 100 companies across different industries on various strategic initiatives and global process and systems transformations.

Natalie Harms, editor of InnovationMap

Photo courtesy

Natalie Harms has been at the helm of InnovationMap — Houston's voice for Innovation — since its inception in October 2018. She oversees all editorial operations of the site and hosts its weekly podcast, the Houston Innovators Podcast.

After two years of InnovationMap, let's look back on the Houston innovation ecosystem. Photo via Getty Images

Editor's note: A look back on two years of Houston's InnovationMap

HOUSTON INNOVATORS PODCAST EPISODE 58

If I've learned anything from this year, it's that time cannot be trusted. Have we been in the throes of this pandemic for eight months, six weeks, or three years? They all feel accurate in their own ways.

I similarly question how the past two years of InnovationMap's existence has felt to me. On one hand, I completely recognize the time it has taken me to craft over 100 Houston innovators to know roundups and more than 50 episodes of the Houston Innovators Podcast — not to mention the countless other stories with my byline on the site. But at the exact same time, I still feel like there's so much work to be done chronicling the growth of the Houston innovation ecosystem as more and more startups emerge and scale.

I took a moment to talk through both InnovationMap's past and future at an Ask Me Anything-style chat with Grace Rodriguez, CEO and executive director of Impact Hub Houston, as a part of The Houston Innovation Summit. In case you missed the chat, we've uploaded it as an episode of the Houston Innovator's Podcast. So, rather than an interview with a Houston innovator, the tables have turned as I'm asked the questions.

Listen to the episode below — or wherever you stream your podcasts — and subscribe for weekly episodes.


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AI-powered Houston startup helps restaurants boost customer loyalty

order up

It’s no secret that restaurant trends move fast and margins run thin. And with the proliferation of platforms like Uber Eats, DoorDash and Easy Cater, customer loyalty is fleeting.

The solution?

How about an AI-powered restaurant technology platform that helps restaurant brands cut back on third-party platforms in favor of driving direct discovery, conversion and loyalty?

Enter Saivory. Founded in 2025 by Stephen Klein, a software investor, and Fajita Pete’s restaurateur Hugh Guill, the Houston-based startup aims to help eateries better understand and activate guest behavior across digital channels as AI increasingly reshapes how consumers discover and engage with brands.

In less than a year, Saivory has partnered with Shipley Do-Nuts and Fajita Pete’s to bring AI-powered ordering to life.

“With Saivory, we were able to answer the question of, ‘what if the ordering process could be reduced to a single step, where customers simply tell us what they want and AI takes care of the rest?’” Klein tells InnovationMap.

The Houston-based startup made such an immediate impact that it was selected as a semi-finalist during Start-Up Alley at MURTEC, the restaurant industry’s leading technology conference, which took place last month in Las Vegas.

“Houston is a great hub for technology innovation, and we were proud to represent the city at MURTEC this year,” says Klein. “We didn’t win, but we were able to talk about some of the work that we have existing in the market for clients right now and a little bit about what we’re working on in the future.”

In the current restaurant technology ecosystem, the third-party aggregators own the customer attention that brings volume to restaurants, while also taking big commissions and having control over the end relationships with the customer.

That can often make it difficult for restaurants to grow loyalty and repeat business from customers. Saivory aims to level the playing field for restaurants, helping them stay more connected to their customers.

Take Saivory’s recent application with Shipley’s Do-Nuts, for example.

Saivory powered the donut giant’s AI-ordering and launched Shipley's website and mobile app to support its over 300 locations in Texas alone.

Shipley’s new AI-powered assistant helps users create personalized order recommendations based on individual or group preferences. And unlike standard chatbox features, the new assistant makes custom recommendations based on multiple customer factors, including budgetary habits, individual flavor preferences and order size. It can also be used for large catering orders.

“They're seeing more traffic to the site and they're seeing when customers use our AI-enabled flows,” Klein says. “And they're seeing higher basket sizes, bigger tickets, by about 25 percent.”

Klein says Saivory’s technology helps strengthen first-party digital relationships, reduce friction and cart abandonment, improve average order value, and delivers personalized, efficient experiences.

“It’s a win-win: the customer gets the right order quickly, while the restaurant gets a bigger margin,” he adds.

Additionally, the technology makes it easier for restaurants to share rewards, loyalty and discounts, ultimately growing more direct traffic and making restaurants less reliant on third-party delivery apps.

Next up for Saivory is adding new components to its platform to enhance the relationship between restaurant and customer, as well as technology around making it easier for restaurants to get found on Google.

“A lot of people are still searching for the best donuts near me,” Klein says. “Or what’s the best Mexican food near me? Customers will increasingly move to AI, where they’re going to ask where they should eat dinner and expect it to just order them dinner. They will eventually expect the technology to know how to do that. So that’s what we’re driving at.”

Houston leads U.S. in population growth for 2025, Census says

Boomtown

Imagine that the Houston metro area swallowed a city the size of Pearland in just one year. That’s essentially what happened from 2024 to 2025, with the Houston metro ranking first in the U.S. for population growth based on the number of people.

New estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show the 10-county Houston metro added 126,720 residents from July 1, 2024, to July 1, 2025. That’s just shy of Pearland’s roughly 133,000-resident tally.

To calculate population, the Census Bureau counts births, deaths, new residents, and moved-away residents.

Region’s population approaches 8 million

On July 1, 2025, the Houston metro’s population hovered slightly above 7.9 million, up 1.6 percent from the same time in 2024. In the very near future, the region’s population should break the eight million mark.

This follows massive growth in the past 20 years. From 2005 to 2025, the region’s population soared by 39 percent. By comparison, the growth rate from 2021 to 2025 sat at nine percent.

A forecast from the Texas Demographics Center indicates that under a middle-of-the-road scenario, the Houston metro’s population will reach nearly 8.5 million in mid-2030 and more than 9.5 million in mid-2040.

Dan Potter, director of Rice University’s Houston Population Research Center, attributes much of the region’s population surge to people moving to the area from outside the U.S. In Harris County, this means a combination of military personnel returning home, people living or working overseas coming back to the U.S., and immigrants relocating to the U.S., he tells CultureMap.

But Harris County fell short from 2024 to 2025 when it comes to people moving here from elsewhere in the U.S., according to Potter. Counties surrounding Harris County benefited from that trend, drawing new residents who preferred to settle in the suburbs.

“The incredible pull and attraction of the Houston area is its economy, its people, and its affordability, and the significant growth that was observed in 2024 and again in 2025 speaks to the magnetism of the region,” Potter says. “That pull to Houston is too strong to be turned off overnight.”

Cooling economy and immigration shifts slow down growth

Whether looking at urban or suburban places, population growth in the Houston area slowed in 2025 and appears to be slowing even more this year, Potter says.

“A cooling economy and changes to immigration policy are a one-two combination that could knock out the region’s population growth,” says Potter, citing the region’s addition of a less-than-expected 14,800 jobs in 2025 as an example.

Weaker population growth may not be felt evenly across the metro area, according to Potter.

A continuing influx of people from Houston to outlying counties such as Brazoria, Fort Bend, Liberty, Montgomery, and Waller could curb growth in Harris County, Potter said. Why? If the number of people arriving from other other countries flattens or even drops, then there could be “doughnut-style population growth for the next few years, where Harris County and Houston see declines while the suburban counties see an increase.”

Harris County represents 40 percent of region’s population lift

Houston-anchored Harris County accounted for almost 40 percent of the region’s population spike from 2024 to 2025. In one year, Harris County grew by 48,695 residents, or 1 percent, pushing its population past five million. That increase put Harris County in first place for numeric growth (rather than percentage growth) among all U.S. counties.

From 2020 to 2025, Harris County’s growth rate was 6.6 percent. It remains the country’s third largest county based on population, behind Southern California’s Los Angeles County and Illinois’ Chicago-anchored Cook County.

Harris County is on track to surpass Cook County in size in the near future. As of July 1, 2025, a nearly 150,000-resident gap separated population-losing Cook County and fast-growing Harris County.

The Texas Demographics Center predicts Harris County’s population will be 5.37 million in mid-2030 and just short of six million in mid-2040.

Suburban counties see significant population gains

Harris County isn’t the only county in the area that experienced a growth spurt from 2024 to 2025:

  • Waller County’s population climbed 5.69 percent, winding up at 69,858. Its growth rate ranked second among U.S. counties.
  • Liberty County’s population rose 4.4 percent to 121,364, putting its growth rate in eighth place among U.S. counties.
  • Montgomery County gained 30,011 residents, with its population landing at 781,194. That placed it at No. 4 among U.S. counties for numeric growth.
  • Fort Bend County picked up 24,163 residents, arriving at a total of 975,191 and positioning it at No. 8 among U.S. counties for numeric growth. Fort Bend County, the region’s second largest county based on population, is projected to break the one million-resident mark by July 2030, according to the Texas Demographics Center.

“Lower mortgage rates from 2009 to 2022 and the rise of remote work have made suburban housing more attractive, especially for families seeking affordability,” Pramod Sambidi, the Houston-Galveston Area Council’s assistant director of data analytics and research, said last year. “Additionally, suburban areas are seeing more multifamily developments than before the pandemic.”

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

5 Houston-area companies named among world's most innovative for 2026

In The Spotlight

Led by Conroe-based Hertha Metals, five organizations in the Houston area earned praise on Fast Company’s list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies of 2026.

Hertha Metals ranked No. 1 in the manufacturing category.

Last year, Hertha unveiled a single-step process for steelmaking that it says is cheaper, more energy-efficient and just as scalable as traditional steel manufacturing. It started testing the process in 2024 at a one-metric-ton-per-day pilot plant.

At the same time, Hertha announced more than $17 million in venture capital funding from investors such as Breakthrough Energy, Clean Energy Ventures, Khosla Ventures, and Pear VC.

“We’re not just reinventing steelmaking; we’re redefining what’s possible in materials, manufacturing, and national resilience,” Laureen Meroueh, founder and CEO of Hertha, said at the time.

Meroueh was also recently named to Inc. Magazine's 2026 Female Founders 500 list.

Hertha, founded in 2022, says traditional steelmaking relies on an outdated, coal-based multistep process that is costly, and contributes up to 9 percent of industrial energy use and 10 percent of global carbon emissions.

By contrast, Hertha’s method converts low-grade iron ore into molten steel or high-purity iron in one step. The company says its process is 30 percent more energy-efficient than traditional steelmaking and costs less than producing steel in China.

Last year, Hertha said it planned to break ground in 2026 on a plant capable of producing more than 9,000 metric tons of steel per year. In its next phase, the company plans to operate at 500,000 metric tons of steel production per year.

Here are Fast Company’s rankings for the four other Houston-area organizations:

  • Houston-based Vaulted Deep, No. 3 in catchall “other” category.
  • XGS Energy, No. 7 in the energy category. XGS’ proprietary solid-state geothermal system uses thermally conductive materials to deliver affordable energy anywhere hot rock is located. While Fast Company lists Houston as XGS’ headquarters, and the company has a major presence in the city, XGS is based in Palo Alto, California.
  • Houston-based residential real estate brokerage Epique Realty, No. 10 in the business services category. Epique, which bills itself as the industry’s first AI brokerage, provides a free AI toolkit for real estate agents to enhance marketing, streamline content creation, and improve engagement with clients and prospects.
  • Texas A&M University’s Nanostructured Materials Lab in College Station. The lab studies nano-structured materials to make materials lighter for the aerospace industry, improve energy storage, and enable the creation of “smart” textiles.
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This article first appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

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