what's trending

5 most popular innovation stories in Houston this week

Catch up on trending innovation news, like Houston innovators to know, a new makerspace, and more. Photo by Natalie Harms

Editor's note:Another week has come and gone, and it's time to round up the top headlines from the past few days. Trending Houston tech and startup news on InnovationMap included innovators to know, photos from a newly opened makerspace, details on a space health device, and more.

Photos: $38M innovative maker hub space opens in Houston's East End

The East End Maker Hub, a public-private endeavor, aims to put Houston on the map for manufacturing. Photo by Natalie Harms

A new 300,000-square-foot innovation and manufacturing hub with a goal of creating 1,000 new companies in the next five years has officially celebrated its grand opening.

The East End Maker Hub — a $38 million public-private partnership — is anchored by TX/RX Labs, a makerspace nonprofit, and located at 6501 Navigation Blvd. So far, 25 companies have signed leasing agreements with the hub that has two of its three phases completed.

"Houston can become the next great manufacturing hub in America," says Roland von Kurnatowski, president at TX/RX Labs. "We can decrease our external reliance and increase our resilience." Click here to continue reading.

3 Houston innovators to know this week

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Emily Reiser of Texas Medical Center Innovation, Atul Varadhachary of Fannin Innovation Studio, and Vicki Knott of Crux OCM. Courtesy photos

In this week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to two local innovators, as well as one honorary Houstonian, across industries — energy, health care, and more — recently making headlines in Houston innovation. Click here to continue reading.

Health tech device supported by Houston-based organization hitches ride on SpaceX flight

The Butterfly iQ, a device developed with Baylor College of Medicine's Translational Research Institute for Space Health, is headed to the ISS. Photo courtesy of TRISH

An innovative ultrasonography device that has been developed with the future of space health in mind has hitched a ride on SpaceX's Dragon cargo resupply mission. The Translational Research Institute for Space Health, or TRISH, at Baylor College of Medicine is supporting the product's first user demo in space.

The Butterfly iQ device was developed by Connecticut-based Butterfly Network Inc. (NYSE: BFLY) and is "the world's first handheld, single-probe whole-body ultrasound system using semiconductor technology," according to a press release.

TRISH has been supporting the device's development since the organization realized the impact it can have on astronauts' ability to administer their own health care.

"NASA is returning to the moon and our astronauts will need to be more self-reliant when it comes to medical care. TRISH is investing in innovations that enable healthcare to be provided in new ways," says Dr. Dorit Donoviel, director of TRISH, in the release. "On deep space missions, tools such as the Butterfly iQ will help the astronauts monitor themselves for concerns such as kidney stones, fluid in the lungs, blood clots and swelling of the optic nerve." Click here to continue reading.

Lessons in prototyping: Choosing the right approach to product development

When approaching prototype creation, you must make a series of decisions. This expert weighs in with her expertise. Photo courtesy

When embarking on the journey of developing and bringing a new product to the market, you as an inventor have to consider a multitude of aspects that add to the overall market success of your final product. And prototyping is one of the key product development stages that helps you achieve that.

Whether you're going to launch a hardware or a software product, or the combination of both — you need to have a prototype made. First, it allows you to validate your idea and see if it's worth investing time and money into. Second, it creates opportunities for product improvement, detection and elimination of design flaws, and cost reduction, especially during manufacturing.

Therefore, you will need to make a set of choices before you actually build a prototype to ensure that it results in a viable, cost-effective, and quality market-ready product. Let's look at major choice points and their implications that will help you navigate the process in the most efficient way. Click here to continue reading.

Exclusive: Rice University's new clean energy accelerator announces inaugural cohort

A new clean energy accelerator has announced its first cohort. Photo via Getty Images

Rice University selected 12 early-stage clean energy startups to help accelerate over the summer — and the new program kicks off later this month.

The Rice Alliance Clean Energy Accelerator, which was announced last September, is a 12-week program will prepare startups to grow their business, connect them with strategic partners and mentors, launch pilots, and fundraise. The inaugural application process attracted companies from 14 states and eight countries.

"We were impressed with the quality, potential and range of clean energy solutions being commercialized by our applicant pool and took great care in assessing their potential as well as our ability to meet their identified needs," says Kerri Smith, the accelerator's interim executive director. "The selection process was very competitive. We had a difficult time paring down the applications but are looking forward to working with our first class of 12." Click here to continue reading.

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Building Houston

 
 

Houston software development firm Axon is planning its Texas expansion thanks to its recent acquisition. Photo courtesy of Axon

For Owen D. Goode, Houstonians have a propensity for never being satisfied — and that's been extremely advantageous for his business.

“There’s this feeling in Houston of not being finished yet that I love,” says Goode. “Nobody is every fully satisfied in the best possible way. Nobody is sitting back and saying, ‘This is the best we could have done.’”

Goode, formerly the CEO of Axon, comes from an aviation background that includes operating as both pilot and mechanic. He now uses those skillsets in a very different world—helping to lead a company that focuses on system transformation. Axon, which was founded in 2017 was a boutique software firm focused on cloud engineering and data engineering.

This January, a larger company, Zaelot, led by CEO Jeff Lombard, acquired Axon. Zaelot is a global, software firm with a presence in 14 countries, mostly focused in the United States, Uruguay, and Iceland.

“Together we have a strong suite of offerings across a wide variety of domains including full-stack development, cloud/data engineering, design, staff augmentation, project management, and software architecture. We also have experience in multiple domains, including health care, aviation, defense, finance, and startups,” says Goode.

To the layman, this sounds impressive—and complicated—but what does Zaelot, actually do? Asked to explain at a kindergarten level, Goode says, “We take old code and make it less bad.”

With the motto, “Solve Today, Build Tomorrow,” Goode has worked with companies such as a major international airline to clean up its back end. Using a real estate analogy, Goode says that he and his team transform brownfield development environments (“a half-finished building that’s messy and there’s sewage everywhere”) into greenfield ones. It’s essentially a fresh start for sites that have become muddled over years of neglect.

“Health care is notoriously bad for that,” Goode says, though he is unable to disclose specific past or present clients.

Thanks to the merger with Zaelot, Goode and his team are now poised for rapid growth. Becoming part of a 100-person multinational company has now unlocked capital that Axon had never seen before. Goode promises rapid expansion in Texas, beginning in Houston in the next six months to a year. The executive—now Zaelot’s executive vice president—is already a well-known face on the Houston scene, where he regularly attends Cup of Joey and other Houston community events, such as CodeLaunch.

That growth includes gaining office space and expanding his staff in Space City.

“Zaelot's claim to fame is an extreme focus on employee satisfaction, with a 94 percent retention rate,” he says.

It’s his goal to keep those numbers up by serving the people who work for and with the company and treating them as human beings with families, not interchangeable parts. Next on the horizon, Goode says he and his team will be hiring sales and technical account management positions.

Though Zaelot’s staff is distributed around the world, Goode says Houston will always be home base for him. “It’s a literal launchpad that we’re continuing to grow off of,” he says. “I’m a big believer in Texas in general. And I’m just excited to see what happens.”

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