can you hear me all okay uh so I'm going to ask my my special guests to come up on stage we have Trevor best Robin Cardwell and Stephanie Murphy and while they're sitting in I'm just going to say you're going to ask what is pumps and pipes right it's one of Houston's oldest Innovation programs been around for 18 years and it's all about convergence Innovation and Aeros space energy and medicine so I'm going to take a little seat and we got a bunch of questions the three questions that are posed to panelist today are basically around examples of cross Innovation um cross convergence Innovation it's the specific so it's the strategy of how we keep doing that and it's the Talent Force so the first question I'm going to hand off to Trevor first is give us specific examples of cross industry collaboration had have led to significant um Innovations and and potentially put in a little plug there for Houston why is this so uniquely Houston yeah amazing so uh first off really happy to be here at South by Southwest uh would love to tell you a little bit about what we do and how we've engaged with different Industries across Houston so uh CIS plasmonics is making a new type of chemical reactor there's a lot of science behind it uh including like fun stuff like quantum mechanics and uh Nano photonics But ultimately we make a chemical reactor that is powered by renewable electricity uh this enables us to make things like fuel fertilizer and a lot of the other raw chemical materials that planet earth needs without producing any carbon emissions and so uh we got our start uh out of Rice University Professor Naomi Hollis and uh Peter nordlander uh Professor Hollis runs the uh rice Center for laboratory for nanophotonics and the uh SMY curl Institute uh they invented our technology but it wasn't the first tech that they invented uh they first applied their technology to Medical Science and uh when we were getting started that other uh technology being commercialized by a company called Nanos Spectra uh proved pivotal to us uh we actually started in their warehouse so for the first like three years of our company uh we were you know in the back room Warehouse with like lights we bought from Walmart to make sure we could see what we were doing uh you know growing our startup out of a a you know medical company uh in their back room and then through the years we've had a lot of really interesting opportunities to engage with industry uh our chemical reactor uses light instead of heat and uh because of that we have to build our containment out of materials that light can pass through like glass and as we were scaling up you know we have this reactor that's got really interesting conditions and we're trying to solve how to get the metal and in the glass to seal without leaking or breaking and we're like man are there any other industries that have solved a problem like this before and uh we actually turned to the space industry so we're like hey does anyone know anyone from NASA like let's get some people on the phone we actually got somebody from the shuttle program on the phone and we're like hey how did you get those windows on the shuttle to seal and you know not like blow out or you know cause any problems for the astronauts and they actually walked us through how they designed the space shuttle windows and we took some learnings from that uh and use that to help seal our reactor and uh you also asked me to give some benefits on living in Houston you know it's not everywhere that you can you know start a chemical reactor company in a medical you know science building and you know call NASA to help solve technical problems the kind of you know talent that we have in our ecosystem uh gives us some really unique opportunities you know we've I I talked to a lot of other startups from the Bay Area from Boston and everyone always asked me about talent and it's been funny for us we've never had a problem with Talent uh we've always been able to find like top-notch mechanical chemical electrical engineers you know to grow the company Through The Years uh not only that the uh cost of you know starting a business in Houston you know if you look at how much we're paying for our facility versus other ecosystems really really phenomenal it's been a great place to start a company when it ask Stephanie the same question okay examples yeah so first I'm happy to be here thanks for having me um and I I love living and working in Houston I've lived there most of my life and um I really work more in the space sector in Houston than anything uh but we cross over all the time so a little bit about my company um just to give you some background uh my dad started an Engineering Services firm in the early 90s I worked there for about 15 years and in 2015 I uh left there to start a spin-off company to commercialize um space testing as a service at the International Space Station so we actually own a platform attached to the outside of the space station for um testing materials or Tech demos um in the harsh environment of space um I came back to my dad's company I bought him out in 2017 and in 2021 I put our two companies together and that's how egis Aerospace sort of came to be so we do government services traditional government services we sell a lot of Engineering Services to the Department of defense and tasa um and then we have commercial testing as a service uh and so that has led to a ton of crossover and a ton of examples but one of the ones that I'd really like to touch on uh which I which is really cool for me personally because I was uh with it from Cradle to grave is um in Houston and in the Bay area in particular there's a program called seop which is the space Alliance technology outreach program and sort of like Trevor was saying they reached out to NASA this this is a program that Fosters that so satop connects space companies with companies across the state of Texas who have an engineering uh challenge that they need solved and uh we have Engineers who volunteer their time in that program all the time to help small businesses across the state uh solve engineering challenges and one of those challenges that we helped solve about 15 years ago was for a couple doctors at UTMB and um they had a process for creating these bead based protein libraries right now we're talking stuff that I really can't get into much more than that um but their process took them several weeks to do and they needed a way to make that more efficient and so one of our Engineers um worked with them and and engineered their process down in such a way that it could be done in a couple of hours as opposed to a couple of weeks and he actually invented a machine uh that helped them run these bead-based libraries um so we uh took out a patent on that we called it igore and uh we started a new company with those doctors uh to take that technology forward and help them do that so um these two doctors plus UTMB uh who held some of the IP uh and our engineering company came together formed a new company called a biotechnologies uh we ran that for about 10 to 11 years um progressing the science and um had some great grants brought a lot of funding in and it helped that uh that program was SP you know sponsored by UTMB the IP was held by UTMB and the Medical Center in Houston was a great place for us to uh do additional research and bring in funding we ended up selling that to uh or the majority of that company in 2019 to fan and Innovation Group which is another Innovation group that's a hub in Houston um run by Leo limbeck uh for U innovating things like this and so they're taking these apers um to the next level for Diagnostics of drug usage and uh it's just a really cool example of how our Engineers who work on Space every day had a chance to sort of cross over into another industry we made a whole other business out of it and uh they're moving forward with some clinical trials I believe in the next year or two so that's an example um I kind of plugged Houston all along the way right as I was going because it's just a great place to be and uh it's also a friendly city right there is competition and there's these crossover from Industries and a lot of work that we do for NASA um and JSC is on the M uh or human space flight sector right uh JSC is sort of known as the home of the astronauts we do a lot of work around um the care and feeding of the astronauts we support a contract at Nasa um and so we have phds and um you know epidemiologist to sound technicians to food technicians and a lot of our employees cross over and actually are employed either by Academia in the area or they do work um in the medical center as well and that keeps them up to date and keeps it enrich and it's a friendly environment to do that um there's not there is you know there's poaching that happens and people jump jobs and jump Industries but there's many more opportunities for our employees to cross over and work together in those other Industries that's one thing I really appreciate about Houston it's very unique that he Robin sure so um Robin Cardwell so I'm representing omnis science which um formerly known as mercury data science is a Houston born and Houston incubated company we are a Life Science Focus data analytics Ai and machine learning shop so we have products and services that really support our clients actually in various Industries we've recently focused on Life Sciences but really um focusing on like biomarker Discovery development and progression um Precision diagnostic space and then digital Health technology so all the data that's coming out of all these new technologies that are being generated you know how do you find great signal in that to really help clinical trial development and therapeutic advancement uh this I'm really excited about this panel so I'm a biomedical engineer I feel like we're the engineering panel at some or all engineering companies um and I actually chose many years ago to be in biomedical engineering because of the intersection of multiple Industries and collaborations together so this is a very fitting panel um so after grad school I actually went to the Bay Area um and spent a number of years working with um startups in the oncology um Precision diagnostic space um we don't need to get into the details but using my engineering background to scale the Laboratories there like how do you automate the laboratory processes how do you automate the data analytics that are happening in those labs as we are as the or you know the the world is asking for more precision-based Diagnostics so uh spent six years in the Bay Area then actually moved to Austin and spent five years here and understanding and and gaining experience in the SAS and digital transformation space because you know Austin has a great hub for that um and recently moved to uh Houston about two maybe three years ago um and it was partly a decision because um with my life science and medical background there's so much in Houston where you know I have the opportunity professionally to grow and career and like at omnis science and a number of other organizations um within the life sciences because of our Texas Medical Center and other things there um but then my my other half I guess is in the Aerospace industry and so Houston was a great place for us as a family to move and be able to work with both of our careers and have places to kind of continue to grow and and interact with with great people like we have here um so I moved to Houston um with a a job working for ABB um which if you you don't know AB it's a large Global industrial technology organization that has a a robotics arm and they chose Houston as the um Global Hub for their Healthcare and Life Sciences organization and so I was a part of that of helping grow that there because they had access to so many different life sciences um opportunities uh steuart and I actually worked together on a a pharmacy Innovation project at Houston Methodist putting a collaborative robot inside a um inside the pharmacy where there's a need to take some of the load off of the nurses to use Robotics and vision to to be able to like decrease some of the workload that's happening there um so that to me is like the first example that I had of the collaboration in Houston is this very large Industrial Automation robotics group saying hey life science is where it's at in Houston we want to merge together and and really bring that to be wonderful um Trevor I'm gonna ask you something so you originally worked for oxy was it oil and gas Baker Hughes Baker Hugh wrong one right um but you said you got out of that and you purposely wanted to form a startup company and you went looking for technology which eventually sourced at Rice so what led you to Rice why not another University another IP Center yeah so uh we you know did a technology search where we uh well a little bit about my background before I get into this so uh at Baker Hughes I was working in the R&D Center and my co-founder Dr suan cotti watada and I uh were part of the product development process and between the two of us we were involved in more than a 100 product development projects so we you know this is like early stage R&D we got a good feel for like things that worked and things that didn't uh we started a search you know using this experience uh we identified a set of characteristics that we were looking for we were looking Stanford MIT you know Berkeley Etc and of course Rice University was on that list and uh you know one of the main reasons was you he was a PhD that came out of rice but uh rice is actually one of the stronger universities across the US in terms of like fundamental science and uh what we saw was that there wasn't nearly the same push in rice to commercialize that technology as there was in other Universities at that time this was 2016 2017 so we kind of viewed rice as a very ripe place there was a lot of interesting tech there that wasn't getting you know taken into the market so I started talking to the professors and eventually decided to license our Tech and uh take it out since then uh there's been a lot of changes uh at Rice you know new leadership uh under the uh new University president uh Reggie de roach you know and uh for those of you familiar with rice you know the office of innovation under Paul Cher Curry uh they have been doing a huge push to completely revamp Rice's uh approach to commercializing new technology and so they have you know the clean energy accelerator the rice Alliance is taking a more prominent role in another one of the deployments the ion they have uh Lily Labs which is uh you know they have a program there to help encourage entrepreneurship where they're giving grants to phds to spend like a certain amount of their time to try and commercialize their technology and uh I think that rice is on the cusp of becoming one of the main universities right behind you know MIT and Stanford in commercializing its Tech going to take a couple years but there's a lot of good writing on the wall there but uh it's not just the university it's also the greater ecosystem there is a Revolution starting to happen in Houston right now and if you go back to when sisy started you know one of the first like companies a couple years ago really trying to pull Tech out of rice uh but in the Houston ecosystem there wasn't that much going on you had uh the uh you know HTC which is the Houston Technology Center you had another organization called Start Houston we were talking this morning like across one year there were like two or three you know groups trying to come together make things happen if you look now there is so much more happening there is Greentown Labs there is the ion there is activate there is you know uh tmcx there is jlabs there is yeah there's Halbert and Labs there so so many things like starting to Bubble Up in Houston and uh I think the ecosystem is getting to a point of critical mass there's going to be some like you know pick up slow down you know we are tied to the energy industry which is cyclical but uh I think all in all the signs are pointing towards a lot of success in the future in Houston the one thing though that Houston really needs is a big win uh many other ecosystems have like a cohort of companies that went on to like not only go unicorn but become huge companies if you look at Silicon Valley you know uh not only are there the you know semiconductor companies that you know got the name got it the name Silicon Valley but you know later on you've got the Fang companies Facebook Apple Netflix Google coming out of Silicon Valley and Boston you've got the biotech companies uh Houston hasn't had that big cohort of startups exiting yet but I think we're not far off because like 10 15 years ago there weren't companies like AIS Aerospace you know omnis science and sisy like really getting up to speed in the ecosystem and now there's a lot of things up and coming so I think we're just on the cusp of something really huge for the ecosystem totally agree um when you fin the technology from noal Pete nolander you know they probably IP that or created that what about mid 2000s late 90s the the core Tech behind cisy first published in 2016 so so I'm going some with this right so Trevor's told you about okay your starting point was finding that Tech at Rice just you know for a little bit but what happened before that and it's really important in the hisor IAL context does anyone know what happened at rice in 1985 a big Discovery was made that led to Nobel Prize right they discovered a new form of carbon in the labs it was called C60 ferine okay buy balls Bucky Balls all the way and it's directly LED from a kind of cross pollination cross industry collaboration where you had one gentleman in the UK that was basically trying to look at different types of carbon clusters in space different molecules okay and he was looking for a new way to study that then you heard about a guy called Rick SMY at Rice who was doing semiconductor physics and had very unique laser vaporization methods and then guy in the middle um Bob curl can introduce them right so they were essentially creating space dust in the lab and he kept getting this peak this peak that was popping out 60 60 60 and they're like go away Peak just go away we're trying to look over here kept getting this peak and under certain conditions you'd get even more of that Peak so they realize hang on this isn't an artifact we're getting something we're creating something here and they realized that the only thing it could be is a soccer shaped form of carbon that led to Nobel Prize and if you see the publication it was beautiful it was a one-page publication to Nature that had a little picture of the experimental setup and one picture of mass spec with this big peak and boom where I'm going with this is that launched nanot technology at Rice okay and they had to pull in money more funding to allow these new instruments to to be developed to start analyzing and discovering things at a nano scale that only happened through Aerospace funding through medical funding and um through energy funding so you have you know Labs like Pete all ERS now behal who had multiple applications for that one technology but it all stem from this discovery and it's now leading to these companies and there's another company that I believe um no mahalles and Pete norlander have and it was Nanos Spectrum MH and they've done the first um like human trials it's it's prostate cancer therapy with light activated gold nanop particles you may Wonder well where's go nanop particles in the world they're in covid test kits right so a lot of the lamin or ar theraputics you know the the test kits that you take go n a particles all came from rice and a second thing about you know the the hospitality Houston and ability to innovate multi multi um industry is you talking about ABB project so Robin and I didn't even realize that we actually worked on it at different times so when I joined Houston methis 2020 I tried to get ABB robotics in and we went on a a kind of like problem solving like ex you know exhibit whatever we went into Pharmacy there's a big group of us we literally just walked in and trying to look at problems we had a couple lined up so I sat in the back kind of do what I do right and I was just watching and there was one lady in particular she seemed very nosy all right she was like what what's happening here what's going on and I just looked at her I was like okay she's the person I need to talk to because she's going to know exactly where the problems are I went up had a little conversation she's like you looking for problems I got one right here I can't tell you what the problem is because there's a bit of Ip stuff but right there right then she took us that problem which has now led to a contract in place to actually demonstrate or proof a concept between ABB Robotics and a Health Institute such as Houston Methodist and I really do feel it's only Houston that environment where those kind of collision interactions can take place now going on to the second question is about strategies so what strategies can we Implement in Houston to allow these kind of things to occur and you know Trevor kind of talked about that somewhat with what they're doing at Rice um so Stephanie would you like to comment on that like what strategies can be utilized in Houston to Le more of this knowledge Shar and more of this collaboration to take place yeah I can comment on it I I don't know that I have the the full answer to that but one of the things um that we're trying to do and when I say bay area I don't mean California I mean you know the Clear Lake Area um of Houston um but our Economic Development group uh beab there is is really in a a new leadership um form and they're partnering like with Greater Houston partnership now in a way that they never have before and I think we're trying to bring the messaging together across the city and honestly across the state um especially around the space industry for me you know that's the lens that I look through um in a way that we never have before so there's some exciting things happening in our part of Houston and we're trying uh really diligently to map out strategies um among some of the development groups in the city so that everybody's one aware of what's going on right there's a new space Institute coming in there's some new legislation forming a space commission and a space Consortium uh the space port is up and going uh Venus Aerospace is up and goinging at Ellington Ellington used to be on the Brack list it's no longer doing that there's so many things going on in our area and then just the commercial space com companies um are taking off at a new velocity and bringing a lot of funding into the area and a lot of jobs into the area and I don't know that that message gets communicated across all of the other um Industries in Houston so we're working really hard um as a smaller group in the local Clear Lake Area to try to partner with GHP um and get better messaging and one example of how we're doing that the space Symposium is sort of the uh big conference for space Bas it's coming up in Colorado in a couple of weeks and it's the first time I've seen several companies come together in different parts of the space um ecosystem to put together a unified message about Houston and why Houston's a great place to be um and why Houston is a place where new startups should be uh when they're when they're thinking about where they're going to locate so um that's one example from my um from my little corner of the world in Houston how we're trying to do that better and and maybe just just continuing on that you know why you s in the place to go in terms of funding because behind all these strategies you got to have the funding the money to implement these strategies so the people with the funds must realize it must be like a good return investment so is houst critical mass in terms of Aerospace or is getting there yeah no I think Houston has a critical mass in terms of Aerospace JSC is very friendly to JSC is the home of opening up space commercialization they started um at the ISS with commercial crew and Commercial cargo which people hear about pretty often right private astronauts going to the space station or north or Grumman or uh SpaceX taking cargo on a private Mission the other thing that they've done which isn't so well known is they've opened up for commercial service providers so there's about a dozen providers of services at the space station who own their own little piece of the space station it's not a NASA owned asset um and that's what our asset is we call it Missy it's a facility ATT to the outside of the space station totally commercial so um we do let NASA use part of it for testing but you don't have to be a NASA scientist to utilize a space station anymore the they've really opened up the thinking on that and we can sell space to Private Industry to startups to private um people um on a commercial basis um and and help provide those Services turn key so there are biological resources um ours happens to be out inside you know testing Tech demos materials there's commercial service providers inside the space station who provide um research for pharmaceuticals for Biologicals I was talking to Robin about you know they've just done some 3D printing of um heart cells and um tissues on space station and those are all um levied by these commercial service providers um and I you know JSC is the only NASA Center across the country who's really opened up commercialization um at Nasa so I think they're at a 4Runner there there's a great critical mass too of these private commercial um space companies who are coming together to build the next commercial space station right space station is only going to be there uh five six more years uh maybe a little bit longer if you're like me and hopeful um but uh there's a tremendous amount of investment for um commercialization around low earth orbit and uh the app appliations um are just the ripple effect of the applications of the science being done there is opening up space to to Partners who never had access before so I think critical mass is maybe an understatement wonderful I may be bias uh Robin you let your comment yeah I'll I'll uh take that from the life science uh colored glasses um so you're talking a lot about the Aerospace and life sciences and doing the experiments um on the space station and there's organizations in Houston already like Trish which is a Baylor College of Medicine with NASA that's facilitating some of that as well is like how do we both improve you know astronaut Health but also like health of humans back on this planet um and there's a lot of like amazing advances and things that are coming out that it's just hard to keep up with even on a day-to-day basis um so in Houston it seems like there's so much happening um I think we were all talking this morning and like we we learned something new this morning just between the four of us of like what's happening and what you know what combination of things are happening and what what conversations have happened um I was reminded of you know the eastn there's a eastn maker Hub which kind of helps these you know disperate Industries sort of collaborate like when your company started you know there was a company there that does 3D printing um volumetric who actually recently got acquired by 3D Systems which is a large materials printing organization ation that bought volumetric which is a Houston based but they were like alongside a robotic inspection Vehicle Manufacturer at this maker Hub so it's not you know life science isn't only at the TMC it's kind of around all of Houston um and then Houston also has understood the the need in this in this country to bring biomanufacturing back on Shore so there's new initiatives for biom manufacturing like at generation Park which is on the the Northeast side of Houston so again not all the TMC there's other areas where Houston has the space to grow so not just startups but how do we grow and manufacture for the biomanufacturing era that needs to come back here as well um there's small privately or owned Engineering Services companies where you know those Engineers are very well trained across multiple Industries whether it's Aerospace life science um semiconductors things like that so supporting either some of the startups or some of the um academic centers to be able to give more um I guess you know keep moving things forward as these Innovations go um and then to talk about the data that's coming out of whether it's Aerospace or biotech or wherever now we are in this like data Revolution as well and there are companies and you know the need and the expertise within Houston to really um start capitalizing and trying to find the value that's coming out of all that data um I'm sure Houston Methodist is sitting on Treasure troves of data where there may be an amazing Innovation there if we can just kind of take a look under the hood and kind of see what's happening um one thing I'll say kind of to your funding question or comment was you know in this world of AI and machine learning you may not always know what you're going to get like it's hard to calculate and say what the ROI is going to be at the end of this experiment with your data you just kind of have to like look and see and try um traditionally life science and Healthcare has been a bit risk adverse as so to speak um and so I think Houston is Houston leaders and Houston um kind of having that oil and Energy background that's less risk adverse that's willing to go drill into a potential uh Gold Mine of of oil can bringing that attitude back to the life science space I think there's a critical mass there to maybe make that transition which for Life Sciences would be huge because I think for funding that's really what's going to drive some of these like Moon shots and really challenging problems so I think what you're hearing is there's a lot of stuff going on I mean it's almost overwhelming and to be honest if it wasn't for Innovation map and I see Natalie harms is here it wasn't a renovation map which every single day post publishes a kind of what's going on in Houston renovation I would be lost I mean 7 a.m. every day on the button boom so sign up to that b is phenomenal um you know you're talking about like you know what strategies can be implemented to promote knowledge sharing and one of the things we've done at Houston Methodist is you probably don't know this but Houston Methodist provides Medical Services to axum space they're like they the key medical provider okay so so from that I started speaking with the axom space folk um I think Mike Harrison is their their chief medical officer and you know just really kind of organic conversation saying hey you know like what are you guys looking at what are you wanting to do and there seems to be not just aim space but you know through Trish as well this unilateral need for this extended reality applications right so augmented reality how do you do surgery in space with a time lag with a latency there with minimal tools right and it naturally opens itself open to to artificial intelligence to AI Etc um so you find like just through those I I mean I guess it's an undefined Strate stry but just by having the strategy in the first place of axum space and Houston Methodist it leads to these organic serendipitous discoveries right um getting back to Houston there was the colleague of mine Mark Hanigan who I thought described Houston perfectly last year he said Houston's the type of person where you're at a bar and you say here hold my beer I got this right and that's a real nice ethos kind of Spirit Houston it's like hey I've got this right but given that I'm Scottish and given that my buddy's Scottish as well there's a little bit of competition there I said all right man all right well let's do something all right so we actually went out and created this data preneur and health program which is based at Houston Methodist Hospital brand new Natalie I've not even told you about this yet so I'll tell you in future so data per in health because like the oil and gas folk the last 100 plus years the wild CS right we want to main that data we want to be able to put money in looking for this data so with this structure we want to be able to you know people like omn science work on building that framework so that we can come along and M that data because we are it's beyond a trove of like wealth it's it's going to lead to new discoveries as well in science which is really incredible I mean that's that's my kind of view anyway um so just kind of tying off the last question it's people power right it's all about people and Trev said it very clearly this morning it's all about people people right no matter what industry no matter who you're working with relationships people okay so how you know how how can Houston attract um the right people um and how can we develop this cross-disciplinary Innovation to to keep this Innovation machine going I mean Innovation is the game that never ends so any thoughts in that Trevor yeah sure so Houston has a corner copy of opportunity for people people looking to switch Industries and uh this is because of you know the nature of the different industries that that show up in Houston there's a lot of overlap so like if we just talk about like General engineering like a lot of the principles that are used in Aerospace can also be applied to the energy industry like you're getting into medical devices you need engineering there as well and so uh there is a lot of opportunity for people to switch Industries like in sisy you know we've got people who come from the medical industry we've got people who come from Aerospace you know and bring skills like project management and uh you know other things so like it's funny because uh we're actually using uh you know agile processes to help develop our reactor which is typically used for software and so uh lots and lots of opportunity in Houston and not only that just the diversity of our talent pool uh I I hear a lot that Houston is like the most diverse ecosystem in the United States and I really think that that's one of our superpowers it you know the you nature of the city and how it brings International uh players to come like participate in our medical industry uh to come participate in the energy industry like brings a lot of new ideas and uh I think this is one of the strongest things uh you know in Houston it's something that we really focus on Stephanie like comment yeah uh sort of like Trevor said I think it's easy for people to to uh find their place across different Industries and not just jump industry industry but straddle them also so um even though we're in space we do a lot of uh aerospace engineering uh we love hiring engineers and uh managers out of oil and gas in particular um they come with a different um Pace than we're used to in sort of Government Contracting world uh they have great commercial practices great work ethic and um you know two of our key people uh from oil and gas uh our chief strategy officer and one of our vice presidents over our Hardware development and he in particular has brought some engineering perspectives to what we do in space um that we wouldn't have had the benefit of otherwise and um his experience was um operating uh remote operated vehicles in in subsea environments super harsh environments um you know not able to have human access to those environments and he took some of the designs for some of those rovs uh for the robotic interfaces and helped us apply those to things that we're doing in space where super harsh environment can't have access to astronauts doing Evas all the time um and so we needed robotic access and it helped us uh bring to Market a more efficient um robotic interface for uh changing out our science carriers on our facility and we wouldn't have had that if he hadn't crossed over to our company um but also we have employees who straddle and I mentioned this a little bit earlier but um we have an employee for example who helps support um the human health and performance work at JSC that's work that helps take care of the astronauts um and she also is a uh director of an Aquatics Lab at the University of Houston so she gets to she's Academia PhD she gets to sort of and do a little bit of both where she's helping the astronauts um and take care of the the health systems for them but she's also still got a foot in Academia uh running a lab at the University of Houston and we have that from time to time we have people who straddle Medical Center projects uh while they're also doing work uh for NASA um so it's a really unique place where employees get the opportunities to do that um I don't think that you could find that many other places in the country no and it's important have know kind of cross industry networks right if you're want to try and recruit like new phds new students you kind of you got your ear to the ground you're understanding who's coming up piara and Robin like comment yeah absolutely I'll kind of second third everything you've been saying but um I think it is very true that Houston is the most one of the most diverse cities I've lived in um it it's amazing not just from like who but like you have you know rice and other um organizations that are you know graduating new phds in all these fields but then there's also like technical more technical colleges and things like that where you know technicians and Engineers that may need to you know have worked in the oil and gas industry before maybe more in a manufacturing setting you know kind of providing training opportunities to to maybe tweak what they already know in like the process side or the manufacturing for like a biological manufacturing setting is important because bringing those skill sets to like a life science organization where all of a sudden you need to make you know however one liter but now you need to make you know 30 liters seems like a lot in life sciences but to oil and gas that's like nothing like that that's tiny um so I think there's diversity in both the industries that folks have coming from and also the um sort of experience and expertise that they have um you know I will speak a little bit on the the data side of things so so data can be broken down into you know various types so time series data um if you pair a data scientist with a domain expert you can really make some amazing Predictive Analytics on the time series data well how can you use time series data like from an oil and gas um drilling operation and there's some similar techniques that can be used there so as long as you have a little bit of domain expertise to to Really capitalize on the tools and techniques that are available these days um you can really uh do some amazing Innovations and and grow there so I really think Houston has kind of all these pieces put together we have domain we have the manufacturing side we have the process side we have all the engineering technicians so we can kind of put all the pieces together for growing scaling organizations yeah and it's not just all the the technical um background as well I mean you know when we're hiring at Houston Methodist there's there's a lot of like customer service that goes on right so the first thing I ask whoever I'm bringing even if they're Engineers I say have you ever worked in a bar ever worked in a restaurant and if they say no I'm like oh it's not bad but there's a lot to be said for people that have really good customer skills like be able to handle people and work with people because it is all about people at the end of the day so given that Houston is one of the best biggest restaurant scenes America there's a lot of people that have been in that service industry all right that are maybe working in a restaurant when they going in the university college so there's a lot to be said for that I think and given that it's such an international headquarters I mean you know we touched on this earlier there's a lot of diversity of thought okay you got a lot of people coming in from different countries they've been educated differently they just see the world and think about the world in a different way and that's critical sometimes to to shift the ne Innovation you can innovate the room F of people that are all from the same background been educated the same just my opinion it doesn't work right so now's the even more fun part is the audience Q and A I know everyone's itching to ask questions quick question to you guys though um put your hand up if you're from Austin you're currently live in Austin and same question but for Houston all right and then everyone else who wants to relocate to Houston if anyone re relocates Houston I will give you the contents my wallet which is five bucks and I've got $3 in Hub buddy bcks as well have family um so yes I'd love to invite the audience to come up for Q&A if you just like to make your way of the microphone say Who You Are and we'll try and answer your question I've been waiting for this for the whole session just in case anybody wondered um but no my name is uh Wesley Owens I'm with bandj Solutions we are uh blue collar Tech uh founded in College Station Texas which of course is is right on the doorstep of of Houston um we're about 3 years old we just passed our our third anniversary and uh we've had a lot of success ESS early on we've gotten uh 1 million in ARR in the first 24 months uh we just passed into profitability 1 month ago so we're really really excited about that um but it's been very very challenging uh one of the issues that we've run into is being in College Station uh connections are really really challenging for us and when you're talking about people you're talking about what's happening in Houston and all of this Innovation these connections that are going on uh we're about equal distance out of Dallas Houston and Austin were considered as being part of kind of Houston but we're finding it hard to make connections there so what would you recommend for us uh as we continue to grow and to develop to to really take part uh in the community that's building there I think you need to relocate to Houston okay uh I would there's a couple organizations that do a really good job of helping like connect and spread the word so uh in if you're in energy you know in Houston you've got Greentown labs and the ion I would uh you know least send someone there to their events you know once a month once every other month in uh Austin and Dallas you've got Capital Factory Capital Factory has some presence in in Houston as well and uh I'm not quite sure in Dallas but those are some of the best like networking organizations if you're just looking to meet people gotcha thank you so much any other suggestions I mean you know sort of jumping on what Trevor said I think you need to find the opportunities for networking so I Love College Station I'm an Aggie twice over and uh and I'm in College Station all the time but um it you're right it doesn't have the network built into the college station infrastructure for maybe the type of growth that you need I think there's several organizations um and you know a little plug for GHP that's a great place to start um because they can help you sort of splinter out into other organizations it just sort of depends what you want to do but um I think there's no shortage of um opportunity conferences associations in Houston that maybe you could get connected to but you have to show up um because you have to build those relationships it's you know people do business with people um and companies you know it's people who are doing business with people um so you got to show up and and uh and be a little bit engaged I'd say or have somebody be engaged uh to make a difference but there's no shortage of opportunity to do that in Houston um I would say GHP is maybe a good place to start yeahp like like definitely get on Greater Houston partnership newsletters and I think I mentioned earlier but Innovation map has a daily newsletter as well it's it's a daily digest of everything that's going on um so I think once you find your network just ping them don't stop just kind of build that up perfect yeah and as a new person to Houston I find I found Houston to be very welcoming like talk to anybody I mean I went to Greentown Labs as a life science person and just started talking and I met some really great people and so people are very friendly um which I think is amazing and just happy to talk about what's what they're up to and things like that so yeah there's so much going on though for sure perfect well thank you all thank you so much thank you for the question hi guys great talk my name is Jess Ferrari I work for the city of Austin's Economic Development Department um you guys shared a lot of examples of sort of innovation from Cross industry collaboration and that was really cool to see uh what role if any um Can City governments play in sort of supporting this type of collaboration across Industries oh that's interesting um well we have at least on the life science sign we have a lot of State support on like the sepret side of things but Houston you know providing the space Prov you know Greater Houston partnership I believe is part of the yeah yeah so it's so so from my experience um I think being aware of what issues that the local government and governance structure are going after is is critical all right you know I think in Houston you have Jesse Rios is the the um Chief Innovation officer for the you know the city of Houston I went to one of his um talks and they were talking about flood mitigation you know flood prevention control it was after Hurricane Harvey um and that was very clear to understand okay what are they doing they're they're expanding the BIOS um they are potentially looking at new tech from rice to look at flood levels based on optical cameras so you know for any innovator in that room any technologist as soon as they hear these problems their brain just starts going all right you just can't turn it off so you know the more way you actually disseminate that information the public I think the better you know have it written down have it on your website just have it there um it's really important and and for Houston I'm going to say it I said it today they got to get the train sorted out man right what I mean by that is right through there Houston they've got big train tracks They Run big freight trains but they run them at 8:00 a.m. in the morning they run them at 4:00 500 p.m. in the evening when you've got 120,000 people driving just to the Texas Medical Center like the medical center is the eighth biggest business district in the US okay and they're talking about oh yeah we're going to build tmc3 we're going to add four 40,000 jobs we're going to build this bioport another 50,000 jobs and and there's me put my hand up and saying well what are you going to do about traffic yeah nothing right that that's room for Innovation right there but they got to get like they got to get the train sorted they got to get the traffic sorted then over yeah and I think something that could be very good is if you're very intentional about the types of Innovations you're looking for and like put out a call you know like hey the City of Austin is going to like adopt some new technology in this area and we've set money aside from it and we're going to preferentially select you know a startup or something from our ecosystem to do that and uh it needs to be something that's not so critical that if you know like you you probably don't want to to like you know do the uh like flood prevention on the Bayou with like some startup who's never deployed technology before because Houston really needs that to work but uh but other things like uh you know the way uh there was one startup that was like looking at how like Metro buses communicated with each other and like the connectivity there and how they could like track and manage their routes and like turn it into an app that people could use uh you know things like that just be very intentional about it put the call out there and uh you know see who responds yeah and just one more thing to add there is um work with the school districts as well and where I'm going with this is if you put something out there saying Hey I want all these kids to do a school project that filters up to the parents all right so you're indirectly then disseminating what you need to the entire city I mean that's why pumps and pipes does a lot of work with Houston Independent School District HISD because of that reason it's like we want to get a message message out there we do it as an Interac and interaction with the the high schools for example or the elementary schools yeah and just as a note when I say put out the call like go tell Capital Factory tell the University of Texas like the entrepreneurship schools you know those networking groups where people show up okay thank you next question hey very happy to have the chance to speak with you guys I think it's uh it's pretty amazing that we can pick up your brain for free so I'm very inspired about that so I'm anch child director for oci Global I don't know if you heard about them we're in bont Texas and right now we're struggling to find talent in manufacturing so I wanted to ask you what creative way and I'm really emphasizing on the what creative way have you using your career to find top talent because my team and I we kind of struggling right now to not only attract talent in bont but also retain them and I think especially the industry that you guys are in it's a it's a challenge that you may or may not experience depending on the talent that you have in your team but I kind of want to see what creative way have you used in the past or currently to tackle that challenge thank you so so just I got the question correct are you asking how the city of bont can attract talent and keep the talent there right how you can attract talent and retain them and okay what creative have you used to do that creative way have you used to do that great have used okay um one suggestion for that did you say you were in Bowmont is that correct cor bont Texas correct um is partner with your local city and your local University or uh a good example Dr helier is here but sanjo Community College has an edge Center for example and they uh got a grant um and they work and they communicate with all the local aerospace companies there uh but they got a grant to do education training for Aerospace technicians specifically and they partner these techs um with these companies so they get hands-on experience while they're going through their certification program and they've come to us and said hey what is the talent that you need and that you're missing and then they go and they develop their curriculum around it um to help provide this um new pipeline of tech Talent it's it's technical trade um and they did that in coordination um through our Local Economic Development Group where they have access to all the aerospace companies that are there they have access to all the local city governments um attend those events um they have access to other Academia um are at those events and I think it's been a pretty effective uh program it's just sort of I think taking off um but that's one way maybe to partner with uh your local government and the local school and go after some grant money to get the kind kind of training that you need um to help build that pipeline that's that's one suggestion um I mean I I agree that it's like building the pipeline but then I think I don't know if you're looking for like experience manufacturing people as well there's there's the early stage but then also the experience um I I mean I don't know if I have the solution but I know that this you know the remote the hybrid working is a very much CH challenge especially in the main ufacturing when you need to be Hands-On so um but retaining talent and making sure that they're in like great places to live and like providing benefits that may not always be salary I know this is a whole conversation to open up but um you know data scientists just coming from our side is that is a very hot field right now and very challenging to maintain and keep those people engaged and working um so we have other benefits that allow our scientists to you know kind of have independent projects and being inovative themselves and have a lot of autonomy so um I don't know if I have the solution but like I like your you know feed the pipeline partner to get the pipeline fed but then also you know thinking about what what the needs are for your organization in a place that may not have so many and maybe being creative um in non-traditional ways yeah something that I always think about is uh like when you're talking about Talent you got to think about the value that your organization or the employer is providing and and uh like when you're thinking about the value that you're giving your employees you're you're doing one of two things you're either filling their heart or you're filling their wallet or both if if you're a really great place to work but uh like filling the heart like sisi is a mission driven company you might see the the sisy shoes we buy everyone a pair of the kicks because we walk this path together you know we are here to like help fight climate change prevent a gigaton of carbon emissions and so like the reason for our being is that we want to make a better future and that kind of mission will attract a certain kind of people around it one of the reasons that we've never struggled for talent is there's a lot of people who want to be part of something bigger and fight for a better future and so that's like filling the heart uh the other thing is like uh you if you have a you know organization that doesn't isn't really Mission driven and it's just like bottom line profit then you you got to fill people's wallets and pay them well if you want them to stick around and so like for the the companies that you are trying to help attract and retain Talent like you know think about it are they you know Mission driven are they providing benefits above and beyond just salary and if not like are they paying better than than someone else can pay somewhere else uh because if they aren't Mission driven and there's no reason Beyond money to work there and they're not paying well then they're going to have problems attracting and retaining Talent okay one last question Natalie hi um and Stuart thank you so much for the Innovation map shout outs but um one thing that kept sticking with me through this fabulous panel um was the note on Houston not yet having its big win because I've heard that a lot and it seems crazy when we talk about Houston's Legacy Industries um having such major activity major corporations involved um I'm wondering what's the definition of having a big win in the year 2024 because you mentioned volumetric exiting before it could like grow big enough and then have that big wi you know it seems like some of the good companies get scooped up earlier on in this day and age and also like IPOs are more rare So what's a big when for Houston I mean I think it's an IPO with uh an industry making company you know like we talked about the Fang companies you you look at like Tesla with electric vehicles uh like we need some Houston company to IPO and become you know a disruptor or a market maker and you know I mean there was compact back in the day but I I'm not sure who that name is we got we got industry out the wazu you know we got Chevron Exxon we got you know TMC we got some really big players but none of them are viewed as like uh early stage you know through to exit type companies so I think we need someone to start all the way through IPO and fundamentally change a market to really put Houston on the map that that would be my guess uh and it's not that that the Houston economy needs a big win I mean Houston's like doing fine uh economically it's just the Innovation ecosystem needs a big win yeah I mean I mean personally I I just like to see a tech or something that comes out of Houston that's so ubiquitous in everyone's life you just don't even know it's there and but you know it comes from Houston came from Houston commercial space station you know or like you know Quantum chemical reaction or something might do it all right well thank you very much to the audience thank you to my guest we see you in [Music] Houston