This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Don Frieden of P97, Haleh Ardebili of the University of Houston, and Babur Ozden of Aquanta Vision. Photos courtesy

Editor's note: In this week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to three local innovators across industries — from fintech to energy — recently making headlines in Houston innovation.


Don Frieden, president and CEO of P97

Don Frieden, president and CEO of P97, shares how he plans to streamline day-to-day transactions on the Houston Innovators Podcast. Photo courtesy of P97

Before Don Frieden started his company, gas stations hadn't innovated their payment technology since 1997. He knew that needed to change.

P97, founded in 2012, exists to use innovative technologies to simplify and energize daily journeys, Frieden explains on the Houston Innovators Podcast.

"We think about daily journeys from the time we leave home in the morning and when we get back at the end of the day — whether it's tolling, parking, buying fuel, fast food restaurants, it's all a part of your daily journeys, and our goal is to make things a little bit simpler each day," Frieden says on the show. Read more.

Haleh Ardebili, professor of Mechanical Engineering at University of Houston

Haleh Ardebili is the the Bill D. Cook Professor of Mechanical Engineering at UH. Photo courtesy

A new prototype out of the University of Houston feels more like science fiction than reality.

"As a big science fiction fan, I could envision a ‘science-fiction-esque future’ where our clothes are smart, interactive and powered,” according to a statement Haleh Ardebili, who last month published a paper on a new stretchable fabric-based lithium-ion battery in the Extreme Mechanics Letters.

“It seemed a natural next step to create and integrate stretchable batteries with stretchable devices and clothing," she said. "Imagine folding or bending or stretching your laptop or phone in your pocket. Or using interactive sensors embedded in our clothes that monitor our health.”

The battery uses conductive silver fabric as a platform and current collector, which stretches (or mechanically deforms) while allowing movement for electrons and ions. Traditional lithium batteries are quite rigid and use a liquid electrolyte, which are flammable and have potential risks of exploding. Read more.

Babur Ozden, founder of Aquanta Vision

Babur Ozden is the founder of Aquanta Vision. Photo via LinkedIn

Aquanta Vision Technologies, a Houston-based climate-tech startup, was selected to participate in the scale-up phase of Chevron Studio, a Houston program that matches entrepreneurs with technologies to turn them into businesses. Aquanta's computer vision software completely automates the identification of methane in optical gas imaging, or OGI. The technology originated from Colorado State University and CSU STRATA Technology Transfer.

Babur Ozden, a tech startup entrepreneur, along with Marcus Martinez, the lead inventor and Dan Zimmerle, co-inventor and director of METEC at CSU Energy Institute, came up with the technology to identify the presence and motion of methane in live video streams. Currently, this process of identifying methane requires a human camera operator to interpret the images. This can often be unreliable in the collection of emissions data.

Aquanta’s technology requires no human intervention and is universally compatible with all OGI cameras. Currently, only about 10 percent of the 20.5 million surveys done worldwide use this type of technology as it is extremely expensive to produce. Ozden said he hopes Aquanta will change that model.

“What we are doing — we are democratizing this feature, this capability, independent of the camera make and model,” Ozden says. Read more.

Don Frieden, president and CEO of P97, shares how he plans to streamline day-to-day transactions on the Houston Innovators Podcast. Photo courtesy of P97

Houston fintech startup taps into new tech to modernize 'daily journeys'

HOUSTON INNOVATORS PODCAST EPISODE 197

Before Don Frieden started his company, gas stations hadn't innovated their payment technology since 1997. He knew that needed to change.

P97, founded in 2012, exists to use innovative technologies to simplify and energize daily journeys, Frieden explains on the Houston Innovators Podcast.

"We think about daily journeys from the time we leave home in the morning and when we get back at the end of the day — whether it's tolling, parking, buying fuel, fast food restaurants, it's all a part of your daily journeys, and our goal is to make things a little bit simpler each day," Frieden says on the show.

The fast-growing company — which has nearly 200 employees, most of whom work from Houston — has raised over $100 million in venture funding, according to Crunchbase, most recently closing a $40 million series C round earlier this year. This funding has supported P97 as its expanded its technology, even expanding outside of gas station payments and into other sectors, like consumer packaged goods, mobile app development, and alternative fuel sources.

Part of what P97 is focused on too is adapting new technologies, including biometrics, and applying them to the payments world. Voice-enabled payments is something in particular that Frieden is working on.

"One of the things we’re most excited about is voice enable payments through our partnership with Amazon's Alexa," he explains. "The landscape of payments at gas stations underwent this next revolution, and we're using cutting-edge speech recognition and artificial intelligence to allow drivers to pay for fuel just using their voice.

"It makes the process faster and more efficient, and is completely hands-free," he continues, explaining that biometrics are also safer compared to card transactions. "From this time I say, 'Alexa, buy gas,' six seconds later, the gas would be turned on and any loyalty rewards I have would be applied, all from the comfort of my car."

Frieden shares more about the future of P97, payments, and the energy industry as it intersects with P97 — including the future of alternative fuels — on the podcast. Listen to the interview below — or wherever you stream your podcasts — and subscribe for weekly episodes.


P97 Networks, a Houston-based mobile payments company, has fresh funds to scale its operations. Photo via Getty Images

Houston-based mobile commerce startup secures $40M to scale its SaaS business

money moves

A Houston company that has created a mobile commerce platform for the convenience retail, fuels marketing, and automotive industries has fresh funding to support its growth.

P97 Networks has raised $40 million of venture debt financing from an affiliate of Peak Rock Capital, a leading middle-market private investment firm, according to a news release from the company.

“We will use this new capital to fund P97’s high growth initiatives, which include accelerating user adoption across our Consumer Engagement platform, Energy Transition programs for our clients, and our Mobility Services platform,” said Donald Frieden, president and CEO of P97, in the release.

Frieden says that over the past 18 months, the company has doubled the number of sites on its platform, which includes five largest energy brands in the world, and over 60,000 convenience retail sites in North America.

“With this new capital, we will continue to grow our install base and strategic partnerships," Frieden continues. "We look forward to working with Peak Rock to bring our company to its next stage of growth and further establish our position as the leading provider of mobile commerce technology in the convenience & fuel retailing industry.”

P97's last raise was a series B round in 2019 that saw contribution from Accenture. The startup's series A closed in 2014 and was led by Emerald Technology Ventures.

The company's platform operates as a payments platform as well as a digital marketing solution that prioritizes payment security and customer customization.

“P97 has become the industry standard in the convenience retail and fuel marketing industry, and we are very pleased to help the company reach its next level of scale and growth,” says Nick Basso, managing director at Peak Rock Capital. “We are excited by the compelling opportunities ahead for P97 as the market for mobile payment solutions continues to expand and gain broad adoption by consumers.”

Last year, P97 announced a partnership with Chevron that meant implementing the digital platform into more than 7,800 Chevron and Texaco retail stations across the country.

“Chevron is dedicated to providing products and services for people on the go and continuing to address their needs in the retail of the future,” says Harry Hazen, Chevron senior manager of Americas Marketing, in a 2021 press release. “Our collaboration with P97 strengthens that commitment – delivering a premium consumer experience at Chevron and Texaco locations by enabling our offerings with consistency, speed, consumer value, and security.”

Houston-based P97 has a mobile payment technology in over 20,000 retail fuel locations. Getty Images

Accenture invests in and partners with Houston-based company

Joining forces

Accenture — through its investment arm, Accenture Ventures — has entered into an alliance with a Houston-based company following an investment.

P97 Networks Inc., a leading cloud-based, mobile commerce company that provides in-vehicle payments and digital marketing solutions for fuel retail and vehicle-manufacturing industries, received an undisclosed amount from Accenture Ventures.

"Accenture's end-to-end digital services make the company an ideal partner for P97," says Donald Frieden, founder and CEO of P97, in a release. "We have a long history of firsts in our markets and look forward to many more working with Accenture — including connected car services, voice-enabled payments, fuel retail innovations and blockchain technology — as we pursue our goal of serving more than half of the U.S. fuel market by 2020."

The alliance establishes Accenture as "a preferred implementation partner," according to the release. Accenture will be able to use P97's PetroZone® platform — that allows users to make digital payments at the pumps, for instance —for solutions for its clients.

"We are tremendously excited about advancing our relationship with P97," says Andrew Smart, a senior managing director at Accenture who leads its energy industry group, in the release. "Working together, we will help our clients take advantage of more connected customer experiences."

P97 was founded in 2012 in Houston. Its patented technology uses Microsoft Azure Cloud Services and has been utilized at over 20,000 retail fuels locations in the United States.

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Texas cybersecurity co. expands unique train-to-hire model to Houston

job search

It’s increasingly more difficult to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of proprietary data and information in the ever-changing, ever-evolving digital world.

Cyberattacks, including malware, phishing, and ransomware, are becoming increasingly common and sophisticated, posing a consistent threat to a company’s sustainability and bottom line.

To combat that trend, Nukudo, a San Antonio-based cybersecurity workforce development company, is expanding its initiative to bridge the global cybersecurity talent gap through immersive training and job placement to Houston.

“We saw that there was a need in the market because there's a shortage of skilled manpower within the cybersecurity industry and other digital domains,” says Dean Gefen, CEO of NukuDo. “So, our initial goal was to take a large pool of people and then make them to be fully operational in cybersecurity in the shortest amount of time.”

The company refers to the plan as the “training-to-employment model,” which focuses on providing structured training to select individuals who then acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to secure and maintain fruitful careers.

The company identifies potential associates through its proprietary aptitude test, which recognizes individuals who possess the innate technical acumen and potential for success in various cybersecurity roles, regardless of their level of education.

“We take in people from all walks of life, meaning the program is purely based on the associate’s potential,” Gefen says. “We have people who were previously aircraft engineers, teachers, graphic designers, lawyers, insurance agents and so forth.”

Once selected, associates are trained by cybersecurity experts while gaining hands-on experience through scenario-based learning, enabling them to be deployed immediately as fully operational cybersecurity professionals.

The program training lasts just six months—all paid—followed by three years of guaranteed employment with NukuDo.

While in training, associates are paid $ 4,000 per month; then, they’re compensated by nearly double that amount over the next three years, ultimately pushing their salaries to well into the six figures after completing the entire commitment.

In addition to fostering a diverse talent pipeline in the cybersecurity field, NukuDo is creating a comprehensive solution to address the growing shortage of technical talent in the global workforce.

And arming people with new marketable skills has a litany of benefits, both professional and personal, Gefen says.

“Sometimes, we have associates who go on to make five times their previous salary,” says Gefen. “Add to that fact that we had someone that had a very difficult life beforehand and we were able to put him on a different path. That really hits home for us that we are making a difference.

Nulkudo currently has partnerships with companies such as Accenture Singapore and Singapore Airlines. Gefen says he and his team plans to have a new class of associates begin training every month by next year and take the model to the Texas Triangle (Houston, Austin and Dallas)—then possibly nationwide.

“The great thing about our program is that we train people above the level of possible threat of replacement by artificial intelligence,” Gefen says. “But what we are also doing, and this is due to requirements that we have received from clients that are already hiring our cyber professionals, is that we are now starting to deliver AI engineers and data scientists in other domains.”

“That means that we have added more programs to our cybersecurity program. So, we're also training people in data science and machine learning,” he continues.

All interested candidates for the program should be aware that a college degree is not required. NukuDo is genuinely interested in talented individuals, regardless of their background.

“The minimum that we are asking for is high school graduates,” Gefen says. “They don't need to have a college degree; they just need to have aptitude. And, of course, they need to be hungry to make this change.”

2 Houston universities declared among world’s best in 2026 rankings

Declaring the Best

Two Houston universities are in a class of their own, earning top spots on a new global ranking of the world's best universities.

Rice University and University of Houston are among the top 1,200 schools included in the QS World University Rankings 2026. Ten more schools across Texas make the list.

QS (Quacquarelli Symonds), a London-based provider of higher education data and analytics, compiles the prestigious list each year; the 2026 edition includes more than 1,500 universities from around the world. Factors used to rank the schools include academic reputation; employer reputation; faculty-student ratio; faculty research; and international research, students, and faculty.

In Texas, University of Texas at Austin lands at No. 1 in the state, No. 20 in the U.S., and No. 68 globally.

Houston's Rice University is close behind as Texas' No. 2 school. It ranks 29th in the U.S. and No. 119 in the world. Unlike UT, which fell two spots globally this year (from No. 66 to 68), Rice climbed up the charts, moving from 141st last year to No. 119.

University of Houston impresses as Texas' 4th highest-ranked school. It lands at No. 80 in the U.S. and No. 556 globally, also climbing about 100 spots up the chart.

Rice and UH are on a roll in regional, national, and international rankings this year.

Rice earned top-15 national rankings by both Niche.com and Forbes last fall. Rice claimed No. 1 and UH ranked No. 8 in Texas in U.S. News & World Report's 2025 rankings. Rice also topped WalletHub's 2025 list of the best colleges and universities in Texas for 2025.

More recently, in April, both UH and Rice made U.S. News' 2025 list of top grad schools.

In all, 192 U.S. universities made the 2026 QS World University Rankings — the most of any country. Topping the global list is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

“The results show that while U.S. higher education remains the global leader, its dominance is increasingly challenged by fast-rising emerging systems,” says the QS World University Rankings report. “A decade ago, 32 American universities [were] featured in the world’s top 100; today, that number has dropped to 26, and only 11 of these institutions have improved their position this year."

The 12 Texas universities that appear in the QS World University Rankings 2026 list are:

  • University of Texas at Austin, No. 20 in the U.S. and No. 68 in the world (down from No. 66 last year).
  • Rice University, No. 29 in the U.S. and No. 119 in the world (up from No. 141 last year).
  • Texas A&M University, No. 32 in the U.S. and No. 144 in the world (up from No. 154 last year).
  • University of Houston, No. 80 in the U.S. and No. 556 in the world (up from 651-660 last year).
  • University of Texas at Dallas, No. 85 in the U.S. and No. 597 in the world (down from 596 last year).
  • Texas Tech University, No. 104 in the U.S. and No. 731-740 in the world (unchanged from last year).
  • University of North Texas, No. 123 in the U.S. and No. 901-950 in the world (up from 1,001-1,200 last year)
  • Baylor University, tied for No. 136 in the U.S. and at No. 1,001-1,200 in the world (unchanged from last year).
  • Southern Methodist University, tied for No. 136 in the U.S. and at 1,001-1,200 in the world (unchanged from last year).
  • University of Texas Arlington, tied for No. 136 in the U.S. and at 1,001-1,200 in the world (unchanged from last year).
  • University of Texas at San Antonio, tied for No. 136 in the U.S. and at 1,001-1,200 in the world (unchanged from last year).
  • University of Texas at El Paso, No. 172 in the U.S. and at 1,201-1,400 in the world (down from 1,001-1,200 last year).
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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

Houston students develop new device to prepare astronauts for outer space

space race

Rice University students from the George R. Brown School of Engineering and Computing designed a space exercise harness that is comfortable, responsive, and adaptable and has the potential to assist with complex and demanding spacewalks.

A group of students—Emily Yao, Nikhil Ashri, Jose Noriega, Ben Bridges and graduate student Jack Kalicak—mentored by assistant professor of mechanical engineering Vanessa Sanchez, modernized harnesses that astronauts use to perform rigorous exercises. The harnesses are particularly important in preparing astronauts for a reduced-gravity space environment, where human muscles and bones atrophy faster than they do on Earth. However, traditional versions of the harnesses had many limitations that included chafing and bruising.

The new harnesses include sensors for astronauts to customize their workouts by using real-time data and feedback. An additional two sensors measure astronauts’ comfort and exercise performance based on temperature and humidity changes during exercise and load distribution at common pressure points.

“Our student-led team addressed this issue by adding pneumatic padding that offers a customized fit, distributes pressure over a large surface area to reduce discomfort or injuries and also seamlessly adapts to load shifts — all of which together improved astronauts’ performance,” Sanchez said in a news release. “It was very fulfilling to watch these young engineers work together to find innovative and tangible solutions to real-world problems … This innovative adjustable exercise harness transforms how astronauts exercise in space and will significantly improve their health and safety during spaceflights.”

The project was developed in response to a challenge posted by the HumanWorks Lab and Life Science Labs at NASA and NASA Johnson Space Center for the 2025 Technology Collaboration Center’s (TCC) Wearables Workshop and University Challenge, where teams worked to solve problems for industry leaders.

Rice’s adaptive harness won the Best Challenge Response Award. It was funded by the National Science Foundation and Rice’s Office of Undergraduate Research and Inquiry.

“This challenge gave us the freedom to innovate and explore possibilities beyond the current harness technology,” Yao added in the release. “I’m especially proud of how our team worked together to build a working prototype that not only has real-world impact but also provides a foundation that NASA and space companies can build and iterate upon.”