3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Loretta Williams Gurnell of the SUPERGirls SHINE Foundation, Al Ansari of FreshBrew, and Carolyn Rodz of Hello Alice. 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 advocacy to coffee manufacturing — recently making headlines in Houston innovation.

Loretta Williams Gurnell, founder and executive director of the SUPERGirls SHINE Foundation

Loretta Williams Gurnell, founder and executive director of the SUPERGirls SHINE Foundation, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss how she's impacting young women in STEM. Photo courtesy of SUPERGirls SHINE Foundation

Years ago, through her own experience working with students, Loretta Williams Gurnell realized there wasn't any initiative connecting the dots for young women in terms of translating their state-mandated math and science classes into successful careers and job opportunities.

She set out to connect those dots and increase STEM opportunities for young women and launched her organization SUPERGirls SHINE Foundation in early 2016 to focus on programming to spark STEM interest and education for girls age 10 to 17. Later, amid the pandemic, she realized she needed to do more than just put on events and programming for these young women.

"We had to look at what's going to be longterm for these girls. How can we take the programatic piece that we do so well and make it a part of their lifestyle and decision making opportunities, so we had to pivot," she says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. Click here to read more.

Al Ansari, president and CEO of FreshBrew

FreshBrew has upgraded to some high-tech roasting equipment. Image courtesy of FreshBrew

Al Ansari takes coffee seriously — and he's putting his money where his mouth is. Houston-based FreshBrew, one of the largest private-label coffee and tea producers in the country, announced this month the recent investment of $10 million into its specialty roasting and production divisions.

The company, which supplies specialty blended coffee, tea and total beverage solutions to hospitality and retail business, is expanding its current roasting production and will fund extraction, bottling and canning capabilities, making FreshBrew one of only a few companies in the country to offer total end-to-end beverage solutions. The expansion, which is on the same land the company has owned since its inception in 1995, is slated to be complete in early 2023.

“Over the years, we take a myopic approach with our customers, we look at what they want to achieve and look at their market, and blend their wants and our knowledge and create custom profiles for them,” says Ansari, president and CEO of FreshBrew. Click here to read more.

Carolyn Rodz, founder and CEO of Hello Alice

In an interview with InnovationMap, Carolyn Rodz, CEO and founder of Hello Alice, explains how the partnership came about and how the program will significantly move the needle on equitable access to capital for small business owners. Photo courtesy of Hello Alice

Last month, Hello Alice — now with 1 million members in its community — announced a new program with MasterCard that provides small business owners a simpler way to unlock access to capital.

The Hello Alice Small Business Mastercard offers users expert business advice, business insights, cash back, and a rewards program that gives entrepreneurs points for completing business-advancing activities on the Hello Alice platform.

"As a small business owner myself, I've created a card that I wish I would have had," Carolyn Rodz, CEO and founder of Hello Alice, tells InnovationMap. "We really looked at where are the gaps for these business owners and the things they don't already have or are unable to access." Click here to read more.

Houston innovator shines a spotlight on ways young women can get involved in STEM and innovation

HOUSTON INNOVATORS PODCAST EPISODE 151

As she explains on this week's Houston Innovators Podcast, you don't know what you don't know — how can girls be expected to picture themselves as a researcher, a startup founder, or a business leader if they aren't exposed to people who look like them in those roles?

So, she set out to connect those dots and increase STEM opportunities for young women. She officially launched her organization SUPERGirls SHINE Foundation in early 2016 to focus on programming to spark STEM interest and education for girls age 10 to 17. Later, amid the pandemic, she realized she needed to do more than just put on events and programming for these young women.

The organization's three pillars are innovation, STEM, and leadership, and Williams Gurnell says she's excited to welcome her latest batch of SHINEGirls at the second annual membership induction ceremony on Sept. 23. The year-long program will match the students with mentors who will support and encourage them.

Looking back on the past few years, the pandemic also reinforced a need for community for SUPERGirls SHINE Foundation. Williams Gurnell says the shutdown nearly put her nonprofit out of business, but she realized one way to stay afloat is to be involved with an engaged group of people.

"We knew that if we could build community, we could build our power," she says. "So we built a community and put it online."

Another way the foundation is tapping into community is through the Ion. Williams Gurnell says that the hub for innovation and tech reached out to her to initiate a partnership. Now, the nonprofit is headquartered out of the Midtown building and provides interns and job placement for its members, working with startups and other companies — as well as hosts programming and opportunities in the space.

Williams Gurnell says it's a matter of working together — with schools, students, other organizations, and partners — to really allow for impact. It's not one person's responsibility and there's not one quick fix — just like it's not just affecting one person or a group of people.

"It's not an urban problem — and it's not a low-, moderate-income problem. It's an economic problem and a systemic problem," she says. "But when you give people skills and access and equity, it changes the game and allows them to play in that game with the skills to be able to be successful."

Williams Gurnell says she hopes to expand opportunities nationwide and is looking to her Houston community for support — whether that's financial or through volunteering and attending events, like the induction ceremony later this month.

She shares more details about the future of the organization on the podcast. Listen to the interview below — or wherever you stream your podcasts — and subscribe for weekly episodes.

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9 can't-miss Houston business and innovation events for March

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Editor's note: March is here, and that means the return of some of Houston’s signature innovation events, as well as insightful talks and a Mardi Gras block party. Here are the Houston business and innovation events you can't miss in March and how to register. Please note: this article might be updated to add more events.

March 5 – SheSpace Women’s Day Open House

Connect with like-minded women during a free day of coworking at SheSpace. And while you're there, take a break and enjoy a floral arranging class, complimentary breakfast, pop-up shops, happy hour and raffle prizes. Space is limited.

The event is Wednesday, March 5, from 9 a.m.–7 p.m. Click here to register.

March 5 — Science and the American Presidency

Hear from former presidential science advisors—Kelvin Droegemeier who served under President Trump, Neal Lane who served under President Clinton and Alondra Nelson who served under President Biden—as they discuss their experiences leading the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and how science is used to address issues from climate change and public health to national security and economic competitiveness. An exhibit inside Baker Hall will complement the event. The Baker Institute Science and Technology Policy Program and Rice Innovation will host the talk.

This event is Wednesday, March 5, from 5:30–8 p.m. at James A. Baker Hall. Click here to register.

March 6 — Ion Block Party - Mardi Gras Edition

Let the good times roll this week while networking with potential collaborators, mentors and investors at the Ion. Food and drink will be available while supplies last and the Ion will provide drink tickets for one free drink at Second Draught upon check-in.

This event is Thursday, March 6, from 4–7 p.m. at the Ion. Click here to register.

March 10-14 — CERAWeek 2025

The foremost annual gathering in the energy sector returns to Houston March 10-14, 2025. Themed "Moving Ahead: Energy strategies for a complex world," CERAWeek 2025 will focus on the challenges ahead for energy security, supply, and climate ambitions. More than 10,000 participants from over 2,050 companies across 80 countries will convene in Houston for this ambitious event. CERAWeek comprises three platforms: the Executive Conference, the Innovation Agora, and Partner Programs. We'll dive into comprehensive CERAWeek recommendations in future articles.

This event begins Monday, March 10. Click here to register.

March 11 — Energy Venture Day at the Ion

Preview pitches from 40-plus energy ventures competing at CERAWeek's Energy Venture Day and Pitch Competition, co-hosted by the Rice Alliance, Ion, HETI, and TEX-E. This free, fast-paced pitch event offers an alternative to the CERAWeek event, which requires an Agora pass.

This event is Tuesday, March 11, from 9 a.m.–2:30 p.m. Click here to register.

March 13 — Code4Y'allMeetup

Connect with fellow coders at Code4Y’all's meetup at the Ion. Andrew Baines, Founder of No Experience Jobs, will present "How I Built a Job Board to Help Entry-Level Tech Talent (And What I Learned)." Hear from Baines and learn lessons from job seekers.

This event is Thursday, March 13, from 6–7 p.m. Click here to register.

March 17 — Women in Innovation

Celebrate Women's History Month with an engaging panel discussion hosted by the University of Houston's Division of Energy and Innovation. UH's Tanu Chatterji, Stacey Gorniak and Chrysa Latrick will discuss the achievements of trailblazing women across various industries, as well as share challenges and experiences. Lunch will be provided.

This event is Monday, March 17, from noon–1 p.m. at UH's Faculty Cafe. Find more information here.

March 24-28 — H-Town Roundup 2025

Celebrate innovation, entrepreneurship and collaboration this month during Houston Exponential's H-Town Roundup. During the fifth-annual free event series, previously known as Houston Tech Rodeo, attendees can expect insightful talks, workshops and networking events at venues across the city like the Ion, Greentown Labs, University of Houston and more.

This event begins Monday, March 24. See the full schedule of events here.

March 27 — NASA Tech Talks

Every fourth Thursday of the month, NASA experts, including longtime engineer Montgomery Goforth, present on technology development challenges NASA’s Johnson Space Center and the larger aerospace community are facing and how they can be leveraged by Houston’s innovation community. Stick around after for drinks and networking at Second Draught.

This event is Thursday, March 27, from 6-7 p.m. at the Ion. Register here.

Texas startup's lunar lander aces moon touchdown with special delivery for NASA

Touchdown

A private lunar lander carrying a drill, vacuum and other experiments for NASA touched down on the moon Sunday, the latest in a string of companies looking to kickstart business on Earth's celestial neighbor ahead of astronaut missions.

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander descended from lunar orbit on autopilot, aiming for the slopes of an ancient volcanic dome in an impact basin on the moon’s northeastern edge of the near side.

Confirmation of successful touchdown came from the company's Mission Control outside Austin, Texas, following the action some 225,000 miles away.

“You all stuck the landing. We’re on the moon,” Firefly’s Will Coogan, chief engineer for the lander, reported.

An upright and stable landing makes Firefly — a startup founded a decade ago — the first private outfit to put a spacecraft on the moon without crashing or falling over. Even countries have faltered, with only five claiming success: Russia, the U.S., China, India and Japan.

A half hour after landing, Blue Ghost started to send back pictures from the surface, the first one a selfie somewhat obscured by the sun's glare. The second shot included the home planet, a blue dot glimmering in the blackness of space.

Two other companies’ landers are hot on Blue Ghost’s heels, with the next one expected to join it on the moon later this week.

Blue Ghost — named after a rare U.S. species of fireflies — had its size and shape going for it. The squat four-legged lander stands 6-foot-6-inch tall and 11 feet wide, providing extra stability, according to the company.

Launched in mid-January from Florida, the lander carried 10 experiments to the moon for NASA. The space agency paid $101 million for the delivery, plus $44 million for the science and tech on board. It’s the third mission under NASA’s commercial lunar delivery program, intended to ignite a lunar economy of competing private businesses while scouting around before astronauts show up later this decade.

Firefly’s Ray Allensworth said the lander skipped over hazards including boulders to land safely. Allensworth said the team continued to analyze the data to figure out the lander's exact position, but all indications suggest it landed within the 328-foot target zone in Mare Crisium.

The demos should get two weeks of run time, before lunar daytime ends and the lander shuts down.

It carried a vacuum to suck up moon dirt for analysis and a drill to measure temperature as deep as 10 feet below the surface. Also on board: a device for eliminating abrasive lunar dust — a scourge for NASA’s long-ago Apollo moonwalkers, who got it caked all over their spacesuits and equipment.

On its way to the moon, Blue Ghost beamed back exquisite pictures of the home planet. The lander continued to stun once in orbit around the moon, with detailed shots of the moon's gray pockmarked surface. At the same time, an on-board receiver tracked and acquired signals from the U.S. GPS and European Galileo constellations, an encouraging step forward in navigation for future explorers.

The landing set the stage for a fresh crush of visitors angling for a piece of lunar business.

Another lander — a tall and skinny 15-footer built and operated by Houston-based Intuitive Machines — is due to land on the moon Thursday. It’s aiming for the bottom of the moon, just 100 miles from the south pole. That’s closer to the pole than the company got last year with its first lander, which broke a leg and tipped over.

Despite the tumble, Intuitive Machines' lander put the U.S. back on the moon for the first time since NASA astronauts closed out the Apollo program in 1972.

A third lander from the Japanese company ispace is still three months from landing. It shared a rocket ride with Blue Ghost from Cape Canaveral on Jan. 15, taking a longer, windier route. Like Intuitive Machines, ispace is also attempting to land on the moon for the second time. Its first lander crashed in 2023.

The moon is littered with wreckage not only from ispace, but dozens of other failed attempts over the decades.

NASA wants to keep up a pace of two private lunar landers a year, realizing some missions will fail, said the space agency's top science officer Nicky Fox.

“It really does open up a whole new way for us to get more science to space and to the moon," Fox said.

Unlike NASA’s successful Apollo moon landings that had billions of dollars behind them and ace astronauts at the helm, private companies operate on a limited budget with robotic craft that must land on their own, said Firefly CEO Jason Kim.

Kim said everything went like clockwork.

“We got some moon dust on our boots," Kim said.

Houston startup Nap Bar pivots with VR and big plans for growth

power nap

Houston’s Khaliah Guillory takes a 30-minute nap every day. She says this is how she’s so productive.

The habit also led to the founding of her white-glove, eco-friendly rest sanctuary business, Nap Bar.

Guillory launched the luxury sleep suites company back in 2019 to offer a unique rest experience with artificial intelligence integration for working professionals, entrepreneurs and travelers who needed a place to rest, recharge and rejuvenate. The company was named a Houston Innovation Awards finalist last year.

She says naps are backed by science. And by her professional network, too.

“Once I polled and surveyed my friends, most of them said that they also took naps during their lunch break, whether it be in their office or in their car,” says Guillory, former vice president of marketing strategy at Wells Fargo. “Once they overwhelmingly agreed that they would absolutely use a dedicated place for them to take naps if I created it, I got to work, and Nap Bar was born.”

Simply put, Guillory has effectively made it acceptable and, yes, even cool for working adults to take naps.

“I played D1 basketball at the University of Central Florida and that’s really where I learned the art of a power nap and the benefits of it,” Guillory says. “And I just continued to nap throughout my corporate career. So, in November of 2018, I retired from corporate America … I just knew I had a higher calling to do something else.”

Guillory first opened up shop in Rice Village as a beta test for her novel nap idea and it took off. She soon forged strategic partnerships with organizations like UT Health, where Nap Bar provided much-needed naps to postpartum mothers.

“Nap Bar showed what the benefits of a good nap was, specifically to postpartum moms in terms of mental stressors, productivity, and things of that nature,” Guillory says.

In November 2019, Guillory moved Nap Bar to The Galleria and says the business produced revenue from day one. However, in March 2020, she was forced to shut us down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I promised myself that I was not going back to corporate America, so I pivoted. I moved forward by creating a better sleep box, with a vegan pillow mist and soy-based candle. I also became a certified sleep coach. And I just kept pivoting from there, reinventing Nap Bar as a company,” she says.

One pivot included adding a virtual reality sleep experience, MetaSnooze.

“MetaSnooze is a really cool technology that offers sleep therapy and relaxation that I curated myself,” Guillory says. “Basically, the user puts on the VR headset, and it escapes them. They're transported to places all over the country. For example, they're sitting in serene environments all the while listening to these rhythmic beats that are designed to help them release and relax. Visualizations have been scientifically proven to improve one’s mental health and mental stressors.”

Guillory initially rolled out MetaSnooze in 2020 at events like South by Southwest and kept improving the experience and building her business. By February 2024, she was curating a wellness experience at The Grammy Awards.

“That was huge for us,” Guillory says. “Being able to get feedback from the celebrities, with a handful of them even inquiring where they could purchase the headset. They were excited about the future of Nap Bar, so that was really, really cool.”

The widespread interest in Nap Bar has Guillory thinking big. She aims to expand to 30 locations in three years.

“When I say that, it sounds ambitious,” says Guillory. “It is, but I come from the school of thought that if you shoot for 30 and you get 25, no one's going to shake their finger at you for doing that, right? It's really aiming towards this big, hairy, audacious goal. I learned that in corporate America. So, what we're looking to do now is raise money like crazy.”

Guillory says she’s now looking to scale the business by partnering with like-minded investors with experience in the wellness space.

She envisions locations at national and international airports, which she says offer ripe scenarios for patrons needing to recharge. Additionally, Guillory wants to build on her initial partnership with UT Health by going onsite to curate rest experiences for patients, caregivers, faculty, staff, nurses and doctors. Colleges also offer an opportunity for growth.

“We’ve done some really cool pop-ups with the University of Houston, where we brought the rest experience on campus,” Guillory says. “That means we bring a portable, full-size, organic mattress with disposable sheets, as well as our virtual reality experience.”

Nap Bar will also serve companies, office buildings, and even sports venues, according to Guillory.

“We can literally go any and everywhere,” she says. “Our collected data suggests that we’ve just got to go where sleepy people are so that they can get restorative sleep.”

From a pricing standpoint, Nap Bar’s model is a dollar a minute. Depending on where the client is, the pop-up experience is based on a day rate or a half-day rate, starting at $4,000.

Add-ons include a full-size organic mattress or hosting a masseuse or massage therapist onsite.

With the Grammys already under her belt, Guillory would like to see Nap Bar utilized at the 2028 Olympics and build partnerships with other virtual reality companies to bring its licensed MetaSnooze software to the masses.

She also sees opportunities in athletic treatment, sleep apnea, and insomnia.

“We have done several studies with proven results that MetaSnooze has reduced mental stressors and anxiety,” Guillory says. “I'm excited about what the future holds for MetaSnooze. It definitely is a game-changer … We will continue to innovate sleep or provide sleep resources and tools in a very innovative way.”

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