3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Moji Karimi of Cemvita Factory, Shanna Jin of Rice University, and Trent Crow of Real Simple Energy. Courtesy photos

Editor's note: In the week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to three local innovators across industries — data science, consumer tech, and medical device innovation — recently making headlines in Houston innovation.

Moji Karimi, co-founder and CEO of Cemvita Factory

Moji Karimi joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss how his technology is offering energy execs an innovative way to meat their climate change pledge goals. Photo courtesy of Cemvita

A lot of startups are working on technology that makes existing practices more efficient, cheaper, or faster — or all of the above. But Cemvita Factory, founded by siblings Moji and Tara Karimi, is doing something that's never been done before: biomimicking photosynthesis to convert carbon emissions into useful chemicals.

"There weren't biotech companies working with oil and gas companies for this use case that we have now," Moji Karimi says on this week's episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast. "We're defining this new category for application of synthetic biology in heavy industries for decarbonization."

With this uncharted territory comes unique challenges and opportunities. Click here to read more and stream the episode.

Shanna Jin, communications and marketing specialist of the Data to Knowledge Lab at Rice University

Startups and small businesses are accumulating data daily — here's how to use that to your advantage, according to this Houston expert. Photo via rice.edu

Ironically, the power of data management is almost incalculable. With the right practices and processes in place, businesses can make better decisions and grow more strategically. But, it's not something a lot of startups or small businesses look at regularly. That's where the Rice University Data To Knowledge group comes into play.

"Being able to interpret data and making data-driven decisions becomes the key to the success of a business," writes Shanna Jin in a guest column for InnovationMap. "It is not just a privilege for big companies anymore. Small businesses need it more than ever to make sustainable growth in the digital era." Click here to read more.

Trent Crow, founder and president of Real Simple Energy

Trent Crow, founder and president, and the Real Simple Energy team have moved over to Arcardia with the acquisition. Photo courtesy of Real Simple Energy

Earlier this month, a Houston startup exited to a larger tech company. Trent Crow, co-founder and CEO of Real Simply Energy, says all eight of the company's employees have moved over to Arcadia and more workers will be hired soon. The company has maintained a mix of office and remote workers. Arcadia will look for Houston office space later this year, Crow says.

"Expansion plans include doing more of what we're doing now and offering more features for customers," says Crow, who now is Arcadia's general manager of energy services in Texas. Click here to read more.

Startups and small businesses are accumulating data daily — here's how to use that to your advantage. Photo via Getty Images

Houston expert: How to use the power of data and analytics to inform ​small businesses​

Guest column

Starting a business in a digital era brings entrepreneurs unprecedented advantages with technology and tools designed to optimize a business' operation. Whether it is a B2C or B2B, business owners can gather almost any data and metrics to improve their performance.

Being able to interpret data and making data-driven decisions becomes the key to the success of a business. It is not just a privilege for big companies anymore. Small businesses need it more than ever to make sustainable growth in the digital era.

The challenge? There are countless analytic tools and resources available that can generate data, but you need people who can extract insights from the massive amount of data.

Hire a data science team vs. outsourcing

Many companies go to campus recruitment and scout bright data science talent who also identify with their business value. Hiring people with data science and analytic skills is optimal, but for startups that are not ready to hire an in-house team or have a short-term question, outsourcing is a better option.

Data science consulting

Many online resources can help you extract data, but you are probably wondering: where do I begin? Which tool should I use? Which exact metric should I track?

The Rice University's Data Science Consulting Clinic provides free, open to the public assistance to help clients with all of those questions. It can be for various business sectors, such as research and product development, cost predictions, analytic tools, acquisition decisions, and talent management.

Here are some of the data science aspects we specialize in:

Research & Development - Obtain data to inform a decision on what products to develop.
Data analysis of who your customers are, what they are interested in, and what product to develop is crucial for B2C and B2B. A recent example of how Rice's Data Science Consulting Clinic is making a difference is a client needed assistance with market research to help inform a startup on what kind of product they should create next. The client was able to use the data resources suggested by the student and faculty consultants to gauge consumer sentiment and examples of successful products. With the data collected, the client was able to identify the features that drive customers to purchase similar products.

Cost Predictions - A case study for an energy company
Businesses need to make crucial decisions to achieve business intelligence. CEOs and managers need to base their decisions on predictions and analysis. Another client from the Data Science Consulting Clinic was interested in predicting cost and analysis of the factors contributing to the most expense for the coming year. The client's main problem was to transform the data into a statistical model that could predict the cost. With the prediction model suggested by the student consultants, the client was able to reduce the cost by controlling factors that were likely to cause higher costs.

Acquisition Decision Making for Business Professionals
Clients from the Rice MBA program were interested in investigating the causes and effects of private equity (PE) acquisition. Specifically, the clients wanted to analyze the difference in practice habits before and after acquisitions. As a result of the consultation, the clients were able to determine what factors influenced the PE's decision to acquire new equity.

Longer term projects

It would be helpful to have a dedicated data science team who can work over a semester or year long to find the solution.

Higher education has placed a prominent focus on data science programs, especially capstone projects that provide students with real-world experience. As a business owner, you might not even think about working with an esteemed university to help you with data challenges.

The Center for Transforming Data to Knowledge, informally known as the D2K Lab at Rice University, is founded based on the mission to seek real-world data challenges for passionate data science students. Student teams have worked on over 50 sponsored data science projects with partners from a wide variety of businesses, organizations, and community partners.

Advance data science and security

The perk of working with Rice University is that it provides the most advanced data science research tools and an interdisciplinary pool of student and faculty talent who are passionate about data science. Working with Rice University also guarantees a strong data security system and a comprehensive confidentiality agreement.

  • A cloud-based financial company sponsored a series of capstone projects on applying deep learning to reduce documentation errors and increase efficiency for businesses.
  • A fintech company sponsored multiple capstone projects on building statistical models to predict costs.
  • In the tech-med industry, the D2K Lab has partnered with the Medical Informational Corps, and researchers from Texas Children's Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine to build algorithms to predict cardiac events.

The future of data-driven decision making

The digital era has become the norm for all businesses (large or small), and there's no way to avoid the power of transforming data into actionable insights. So start gathering data even before you build out a business and incorporate the culture of data-driven decision making into every sector of your business.

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Shanna Jin is the communications and marketing specialist of the Data to Knowledge Lab at Rice University.

The Rice D2K Lab wants to help startups and small businesses solve business concerns with data science. Photo courtesy of Rice University

Rice University's data-focused lab presents unique opportunity for startups and small businesses

data to knowlege

A data-focused lab at Rice University is training the next generation of data scientists. However, the students at the Rice D2K Lab are doing more than just learning about the significance of data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence — they're working as data scientists now.

Businesses — large and small — can come into the lab and have Rice students and faculty work on data projects in both short-term and long-term capacity. One semester, a group of students worked with 311 call data for the city of Houston so that officials can figure out what parts of town were in the most need of support, says Jennifer Sanders, program administrator at the Rice D2K lab.

"They were able to show on a Houston map the areas where most of these 311 calls were coming from," Sanders tells InnovationMap. "That allowed the city to focus on those areas."

Lately, the lab has been focused on a several COVID-19 Houston Response Projects, which addressed issues ranging from homelessness in the time of a pandemic, ventilator distribution, and more. One team even made a recommendation to the city after a data project determined that adding five ambulances to southwest neighborhoods served by the Houston Fire Department Emergency Medical Services program would optimize response times.

The lab has two avenues to help businesses: a semester-long capstone course and a clinic for one-time sessions. This upcoming semester, the capstone course has 60 students signed up to work on 10 to 12 projects from corporate sponsors. These lab members — which support the program monetarily — are selected based on their fit within the program.

The D2K Consulting Clinic also offers free one-hour sessions on campus. At the clinic, students look at the data and assess the possibilities and advise on how to use that data for business gain or growth.

"The consulting clinic can be a starting point if a business is not sure what to do with their data," says Shanna Jin, communications and marketing specialist at the D2K Lab.

The clinic also presents a special opportunity for small businesses and startups, a niche Sanders says they haven't tapped into enough yet. She says most of the companies they've worked with are larger organizations, usually in the energy industry.

"We really want to broaden the scope to smaller startups, tech companies, and nonprofits," Sanders says. "We really don't have to limit ourselves. I would really love to expand our reach."

Membership dues for companies, which provides a more structured, long-term access to data consulting, range from $25,000 to $75,000 a year. However, Sanders says the lab is willing to work with startups on a cost that's more accessible.

Ultimately, the goal of the program is to connect the dots for businesses that have data and don't know how to use it.

"To realize the potential of big data, we need people — people who can transform data to knowledge," says the lab's founder, Genevera Allen, in a promotional video. "That's what we're doing with the Rice D2K Lab."

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NASA revamps Artemis moon landing program by modeling it after Apollo

To the moon

NASA is revamping its Artemis moon exploration program to make it more like the fast-paced Apollo program half a century ago, adding an extra practice flight before attempting a high-risk lunar landing with a crew in two years.

The overhaul in the flight lineup came just days after NASA’s new moon rocket returned to its hangar for more repairs, and a safety panel warned the space agency to scale back its overly ambitious goals for humanity’s first lunar landing since 1972.

Artemis II, a lunar fly-around by four astronauts, is off until at least April because of rocket problems.

The follow-up mission, Artemis III, had been targeting a landing near the moon’s south pole by another pair of astronauts in about three years. But with long gaps between flights and concern growing over the readiness of a lunar lander and moonwalking suits, NASA’s new administrator Jared Isaacman announced that mission would instead focus on launching a lunar lander into orbit around Earth in 2027 for docking practice by astronauts flying in an Orion capsule.

The new plan calls for a moon landing — potentially even two moon landings — by astronauts in 2028.

“Everybody agrees. This is the only way forward,” Isaacman said.

The hydrogen fuel leaks and helium flow problems that struck the Space Launch System rocket on the pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in February also plagued the first Artemis test flight without a crew in 2022.

Another three-year gap was looming between Artemis II and the moon landing by astronauts as originally envisioned, Isaacman said.

Isaacman stressed that “it should be incredibly obvious” that three years between flights is unacceptable. He'd like to get it down to one year or even less.

Isaacman, a tech billionaire who bought his own trips to orbit and performed the world’s first private spacewalk, took the helm at NASA in December.

During NASA’s storied Apollo program, he said, astronauts’ first flight to the moon was followed by two more missions before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. What's more, he added, the Apollo moonshots followed one another in quick succession, just as the earlier Projects Mercury and Gemini had rapid flight rates, sometimes coming just a few months apart.

Twenty-four Apollo astronauts flew to the moon from 1968 through 1972, with 12 of them landing.

“No one at NASA forgot their history books. They knew how to do this," Isaacman said. “Now we're putting it in action.”

To pick up the pace and reduce risk, NASA will standardize its Space Launch System rockets moving forward, Isaacman said. These are the massive rockets that will launch astronauts to the moon aboard Orion capsules. At the same time, Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin are speeding up their work on the landers needed to get the astronauts from lunar orbit down to the surface.

Isaacman said next year will see an Orion crew rendezvousing in orbit around Earth with SpaceX's Starship, Blue Origin's Blue Moon or both landers. It's similar to the methodical approach that worked so well during Apollo in the late 1960s, he noted. Apollo 8, astronauts' first flight to the moon, was followed by two more missions before Armstrong and Aldrin aimed for the lunar surface.

“We should be getting back to basics and doing what we know works,” he said.

The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel recommended that NASA revise its objectives for Artemis III “given the demanding mission goals.” It’s urgent the space agency do that, the panel said, if the United States hopes to safely return astronauts to the moon. Isaacman said the revised Artemis flight plan addresses the panel's concerns and is supported by industry and the Trump administration.

Booming Houston suburb launches innovation grant to attract startups

innovation incentive

Think you’ve got a burgeoning startup? Consider moving it to southwest Houston. The City of Sugar Land announced the Sugar Land Starts Innovation Fund last week to support companies that move jobs to the area.

“The Sugar Land Starts Innovation Fund is designed to support companies that are ready to grow and make a meaningful, long-term commitment to our community,” Colby Millenbruch, business recruitment manager for the City of Sugar Land, said in a news release. “By focusing on revenue-generating startups and performance-based incentives, we are creating a clear pathway for innovative companies to scale while reenergizing existing office space.”

The performance-based, non-equity dilutive grant program is open to companies that demonstrate at least $250,000 in generated revenue or $500,000 in institutional backing from a bank or venture capital firm. They must commit to hiring or relocating at least three employees in Sugar Land for a minimum of three years and at an average salary of $61,240. Compliance will be verified through Texas Workforce Commission reporting.

The fund builds off the Sugar Land Plug and Play partnership to turn the city into an innovative technology hub.

Collaboration with the Silicon Valley-based startup incubator and accelerator on a physical location in southwest Houston has supported 22 startups and has raised $6.5 million in capital since it officially launched in Sugar Land last March. Companies located at the Sugar Land Plug and Play include Synaps, a browser-based design platform for architects, and Intero Biosystems, which produces miniature human organs for preclinical drug development.

In addition to direct funding and business space, both the new grant and the overall Plug and Play project facilitate meetings with Houston-area businesses like CenterPoint Energy.

This should not only bring new industries to Sugar Land, but also allow existing companies to expand outward as technological investors to create a web of new progress.

“This investment is about more than technology. It’s about creating an environment where innovation can take root, grow, and deliver lasting value for the Sugar Land community,” David Steele, director of Texas at Plug and Play, added in the release. “Sugar Land is setting itself apart by taking a long-term view, investing in founders, partnerships, and technologies that will define the next chapter of growth. We’re proud to partner with the city in building an innovation ecosystem that benefits both entrepreneurs and the broader community.”

Income study shows $100,000 salary goes further in Houston in 2026

Money Talk

A 2026 income study has good news for big earners in Houston: A six-figure salary goes further than it did last year.

A Houston resident's $100,000 salary is worth $84,840 after taxes and adjusted for the local cost of living, according to the new financial analysis from SmartAsset. That's about $1,500 more than Houstonians were bringing home last year.

The 2026 take-home pay is about 8 percent higher than it was in 2024, when the same salary had an adjusted value of $78,089.

SmartAsset used its paycheck calculator to apply federal, state and local taxes to an annual salary of $100,000 in 69 of the largest American cities. The figure was then adjusted for the local cost of living (which included average costs for housing, groceries, utilities, transportation, and miscellaneous goods and services). Cities were then ranked based on where a six-figure salary is worth the least after applicable taxes and cost of living adjustments.

Houston ranked No. 60 in the overall ranking of U.S. cities where $100,000 is worth the least. If the rankings were flipped and the cities were ranked based on where $100,000 goes the furthest, that places Houston in the No. 10 spot nationwide.

Manhattan, New York remains the No. 1 city where a six-figure salary is worth the least. A Manhattan resident's take-home pay is only worth $29,420 after taxes and adjusted for the cost of living, which is 3.10 percent lower than it was in 2025.

SmartAsset determined Manhattan has a 29.7 percent effective tax rate on six-figure salaries. Meanwhile, the effective tax rate on a $100,000 salary in Texas (based on the eight cities examined in the report) is 21.1 percent. It's worth highlighting that New York implements a statewide graduated-rate income tax from 4-10.90 percent, whereas Texas is one of only eight states that don't tax residents' income.

Oklahoma City, No. 69, is the U.S. city in the report where a $100,000 salary stretches the furthest. A six-figure salary is worth $91,868 in 2026, up from $89,989 last year.

This is the post-tax value of a $100,000 salary in other Texas cities, and their ranking in the report:

  • Plano (No. 27): $72,653
  • Dallas (No. 47): $80,103
  • Austin (No. 53): $82,446
  • Lubbock (No. 59): $84,567
  • San Antonio (No. 62): $86,419
  • El Paso (No. 67): $90,276
  • Corpus Christi (No. 68): $91,110
According to the report, getting some "financial breathing room" by making six-figures really depends on where someone lives and what their lifestyle is. For residents living in the 42 states that levy some amount of income tax, their take-home pay dwindles further."And depending on how taxes are filed, reaching a $100,000 income may push a household from the 22 percent to 24 percent marginal tax bracket," the report's author wrote. "Meanwhile, locations with high costs across housing and everyday essentials may be less forgiving to a $100,000 income."

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

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