Splashy European pool-sharing app dives into Houston just in time for summer

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Houston pools like this are available to rent through Swimmy. Photo courtesy of Swimmy

Scorching temps. Baking cars. ERCOT begging locals to set their thermostats to 78 (say what?). Why, it's almost like it's summer in Houston or something.

After a long sweat, nothing cools off like a long swim in a sparkling pool. To that end, a European pool-sharing service is diving into Houston, allow H-Towners to visit safe, secure spaces that come certified and ready to make a splash.

Dubbed Swimmy, the app (available for download on Apple and Android) connects swimmers and sunbathers with pool rentals in their area. Booking sessions range by pool between $25-$35 per person per half day, per a release.

"I have two kids and in just a few clicks we are grabbing our towels and splashing around in a private pool, it's a perfect playdate," Swimmy spokesperson Isobella Harkrider tells CultureMap.

Here's a sample of some local pools, as described by Swimmy:

This gorgeous pool features a very large pool space, a garden, lawn and deck chairs, a barbecue, table and chairs and a lawn for bowling and other games.
This large, gated pool is perfect for a birthday or celebrating the Fourth of July with friends. The pool owner describes the atmosphere as 'serene' and 'fun' and includes pool chairs.
The kids will love to splash around in this huge pool while mom enjoys a sunny day of play and relaxation.
In Pearland you can enjoy a day of relaxation with a book at this large pool with a beautiful floral garden, the host describes the pool as "the perfect backdrop for a peaceful oasis."
This beautiful indoor and outdoor pool space "allows for comfort, but with access to the outdoors through the windows and skylight," the pool owner says. There are lounge chairs and adequate space for seating. Music is allowed for your blissful day.

Obviously, the pool-sharing app is a no-brainer for those who are shy about inviting themselves to pool-owning friends houses, public pools, and gym pools. But what's in it for pool owners? According to Swimmy, pool owners can bank some serious cash on their under-used — and certified – pools during hot summer months.

"Texas pool owners can make some extra cash this summer, Swimmy makes it easy to turn your pool into a moneymaker and is a profitable move for empty nesters whose certified pools may be less active this summer," says Harkrider.

For more information, visit Swimmy.com or download the app.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

Editor's note: Every week, I introduce you to a handful of Houston innovators to know recently making headlines with news of innovative technology, investment activity, and more. This week's batch includes a health tech innovator, an investor, and a startup CEO.

Jon Nordby, managing director of Anthropy Partners

Jon Nordby's career has been focused on cultivating a culture for innovation, and now he's focused on human potential technology opportunities. Photo courtesy

In his role overseeing startup accelerators for MassChallenge, Jon Nordby started noticing one industry vertical stood out in terms of success and opportunities: Human potential. Now, Nordby is a founding member of an investment firm looking for those opportunities.

Nordby, who served in various leadership roles at MassChallenge — including managing director and head of ecosystems — said he started realizing the opportunities within the organization's space and sports tech programs.

"What we realized over a couple of years running the program was that sports tech as a theme was too limiting," Nordby says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "We were finding really great technologies, but we were limited at the market size of teams and leagues to deploy those technologies."

"Over the course of that program, we found that the things that were related more to human health and performance tended to out perform all of the other things related to sports tech — like media, entertainment, gambling," Nordby continues. "Still really great markets for those technologies, but we found a lot more traction for human performance." Read more.

Benjamin Musher, professor at Baylor College of Medicine and medical director of medical oncology at the Duncan Cancer Center McNair Campus

The new center is specifically designed to allow patients to be on the cutting edge of testing brand-new therapies that could save their lives. Photo via BCM

Cancer treatment in Houston just became even more promising — and forward-thinking.

Phase 1 clinical trials are necessary to prove the efficacy in humans of treatments that have appeared promising in lab trials. In the name of cancer-fighting innovation, Baylor College of Medicine’s Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center has launched the Albert and Margaret Alkek Foundation Center for Experimental Therapeutics.

The new center is specifically designed to allow patients to be on the cutting edge of testing brand-new therapies that could save their lives.

“Clinical trials are critical for advancing the field of oncology and improving outcomes for cancer patients. Phase 1 trials are the first step in bringing innovative therapies to the clinic,” says Dr. Benjamin Musher, Barry S. Smith endowed professor at Baylor and medical director of medical oncology at the Duncan Cancer Center McNair Campus, in a news release. “Our new program will build on the success of previous phase 1 trials at Baylor and provide robust infrastructure to offer more clinical trial opportunities to our patients.” Read more.

Mark Semmelbeck, founder and CEO of A Better Meal

A Better Meal — a new app from a Houston founder — gives you all the tools you need to make healthier food choices. Photo courtesy

After many years of living to eat, a large swath of American society is now facilitating a seismic shift to the healthier alternative, eating to live.

But here’s the rub: eating healthy is confusing, time consuming and, unfortunately, oftentimes pricey.

So, anyone that can come in and cut through the healthy eating machine can carve out a necessary niche in the marketplace.

Enter Houstonian Mark Semmelbeck, founder and CEO of A Better Meal, a platform created to help busy families plan healthy meals easier and to make gradual improvements to their health and well-being.

“My vision is to use rapidly expanding AI technology together with the knowledge and wisdom of an active community to take the stress out of meal planning and improving nutrition,” says Semmelbeck, a seasoned oil and gas executive with over 30 years of experience in founding companies. “While developing the technology for the app, my daughter gave me two beautiful grandkids who both have significant food allergies. Combine that with the fact I now have five cardiac stents and the significance of eating well while paying attention to the details has only grown in importance.” Read more.

Houston founder taps into AI tech to create game-changing healthy eating platform

there's an app for that

After many years of living to eat, a large swath of American society is now facilitating a seismic shift to the healthier alternative, eating to live.

But here’s the rub: eating healthy is confusing, time consuming and, unfortunately, oftentimes pricey.

So, anyone that can come in and cut through the healthy eating machine can carve out a necessary niche in the marketplace.

Enter Houstonian Mark Semmelbeck, founder and CEO of A Better Meal, a platform created to help busy families plan healthy meals easier and to make gradual improvements to their health and well-being.

All-in-one app

Billed as the one-stop meal planning companion, A Better Meal promises users no additional stress in finding the time to look for recipes, make grocery lists, or prepare meals quickly. Families need healthy options and to be able to provide them with ease and that’s where this new application comes in.

“So, when I started A Better Meal, I wanted to answer two questions or help people answer two questions,” says Semmelbeck. “That is, a family gets home in the evening and they don't want to order out and they don't want to go out to eat, they can open up this app and it can tell them, ‘here's three things that you can make with what you have on hand that you like.’ The other question is, 'how can I make small changes to how I prepare my food, how I cook it, the ingredients that I use and small changes that can make my meals healthier.'

“So that was where we started. And then as we built the app out, got a minimum viable product out to people and in front of them, and we started seeing more as they used the app, what they actually wanted when they went to a meal planning app, so the last year and a half has been a process of refining the app to really set what people want in a meal planning and recipe app.”

When users download the app, which is a subscription-based tool, it starts with the simple things like, how many meals they’d like per day, if they have preferences in the types of food that they like, and, of course, if they have allergies.

Custom experience

Semmelbeck says that users are able to personalize the app and set up their own dashboard with meal planning. You can also use the app to analyze a new recipe you'd like to try.

"You can take a picture of, say a recipe written down, and you'd like to put that in your own personal database, you can take a picture of it, and it will interpret it and bring that into the app and then the app will calculate the calories and macros and the macro nutrients that that meal has in it so that you can see that information also," he says.

When it comes to food and meal planning, inserting the word “healthy” invariably invokes a litany of personal definitions, up to and including weight loss.

That definition isn’t wrong by any means, but for A Better Meal, it’s all about introducing healthier options into people’s everyday lives. The app won’t give you a specific diet to follow, but if users prefer a vegetarian, keto or paleo diet, the app will recommend recipes that will satisfy those disciplines.

“For a lot of people that's a huge help,” says Semmelbeck. “They just want to cook and eat healthier. They may like to have vegetarian days mixed in, but don't know where to find those recipes, the app can suggest recipes for a vegetarian meal. It can also recommend that substituting whole wheat flour for conventional flour for making pancakes, things like that.”

And for those users who don’t necessarily have a planned out starting place for meal preparation, they can search the internet or social media for meal plans and diets and then simply import those into the app.

“We also use AI to analyze recipes that would satisfy a certain type of diet that you would want to participate in,” says Semmelback. “But I will say that one of the main things we want to do is help you make small changes because again diets are great and a lot of people are on them, but few people maintain them for long periods of time because, in general, they can be very restrictive.

“So, we really want our goal to be able to help you make small changes with the things that you like to eat to make them healthier. And again, by healthy, certain kinds of fats are good, others you want to limit, certainly processed foods you want to limit, you want to limit the amount of added sugar, and you want to limit the amount of processed foods. That’s why we have our own nutritionist that helps us with those diets.”

Starting a journey

Currently, the nutritionist for A Better Meal is working just for the app in general, but as the platform grows, users will be about to ask direct questions or at least have access to educational materials about specific health issues, and specific diet recommendations for various health use.

“The app has been live for about a year and early on, we found that what people said they want is much different than what they actually use in the app. So, a lot of our work has been over the past year modifying the app, the way you move around in the app," says Semmelback. "We really want to use AI in ways that are helpful to people.

"I personally have dealt with heart disease, and I know that my doctor recommends less added sugar and processed foods. And so those are the kinds of things that we are using AI to do to help take recipes that you might like and make substitutions to those recipes so that they fit the kind of lifestyle you want," he continues. "What we're really concentrating on is the recipe part of the app and improving those and allowing them to be adaptable to the desires of the users. Finally, we really want to push into more education and more gamification where it actually makes it fun to use the app.”

Promising Houston startup expands energy efficiency product to Middle East, Singapore

big move

NanoTech Materials has announced a big expansion for its business.

The Houston company, which created a roof coating using nanotechnology that optimizes energy efficiency, has partnered with Terminal Subsea Solutions Marine Service SP to bring its products to the Gulf Cooperation Council and Singapore. TSSM will become the exclusive distributor and partner of Houston’s NanoTech Materials products, which will include the Cool Roof Coat, Vehicular Coat, and Insulative Coat for the GCC countries and Singapore.

NanoTech Materials technology that ranges from roof coatings on mid- to low-rise buildings to shipping container insulation to coating trucks and transportation vehicles will be utilized by TSSM in the partnership. NanoTech’s efforts are focused on heat mitigation that can reduce energy costs, enhance worker safety, and minimize business risks in the process.

“Businesses and communities within the GCC and Singapore feel the impact of extreme temperatures and longer Summers more acutely than any other region in the world,” Mike Francis, CEO of NanoTech Materials, says in a news release. “We have an opportunity to make a real impact here through reduced energy load, cooler and safer working conditions, and a reduced carbon emissions output from the hottest, driest place on earth. We are incredibly excited to be partnering with our colleagues at TSSM to bring this powerful technology to the region.”

One of the areas that will benefit from this collaboration is the Middle East. The GCC region is characterized by a desert climate, which has average annual temperature reaching 107.6°F and summer peaks climbing as high as 130°F. The effects of these extreme conditions can be dangerous for workers especially with strict labor laws mandating midday work bans under black flag conditions, which can result in productivity losses as well.

NanoTech’s proprietary technology, the Insulative Ceramic Particle (ICP), will be used to address challenges in energy efficiency and heat control in the logistics and built environment sector. The platform can be integrated into many applications, and the impact can range from reducing greenhouse gas emissions to protecting communities that are wildfire-prone. The core of the technology has a lower conductivity than aerogels. It also has a “near-perfect emissivity score” according to the company. The NanoTech ICP is integrated with base matrix carriers; building materials, coatings, and substrates, which gives the materials heat conservation, rejection, or containment properties.

By combining the ICP into an acrylic roof coating, NanoTech has created the Cool Roof Coat, which reflects sunlight and increases the material's heat resistance. This can lower indoor temperatures by 25 to 45°F in single-story buildings and reduce the carbon emissions of mid to low-rise buildings. This can potentially equal energy savings from 20 percent up to 50 percent, which would surpass the average 15 percent savings of traditional reflective only coatings.

“This technology will have a huge impact on supporting the region's aggressive climate initiatives, such as Saudi Arabia’s Green Initiative, aiming to reduce carbon emissions by 278 million tons annually by 2030,” Jameel Ahmed, managing director at TSSM, says in the release. “The regional efforts to enhance climate action and economic opportunities through substantial investments in green technologies and projects are evident, and we are proud to be offering a product that can make a difference.”

NanoTech says its coating maintains its effectiveness over time and doesn’t suffer UV degradation issues which are helpful, especially in extreme weather conditions workers and businesses face in regions like the Middle East.