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The startup program will teach “entrepreneurial skills and mindset to students in a hands-on environment, with input from mentors throughout the weekend,” per the media alert. The Oct. 22 celebration will begin with students presenting their projects to a panel of experts and the public. Rice Provost Marie Lynn Miranda and Yael Hochberg, head of the Rice Entrepreneurship Initiative and the Ralph S. O’Connor Professor of Entrepreneurship at Rice’s Jones Graduate School of Business, also will speak at the event.
Rice has been lauded regularly for its entrepreneurship programs, including by The Princeton Review. In November, Rice's Jones Graduate School of Business earned the No. 3 spot on Princeton Review's 2016 list of the top 25 graduate schools in the U.S. for entrepreneurship studies — that's up from No. 6 in 2015. The school has landed among the top 10 spots on the list for eight years running.
Lets not forget about Rice's Jones Graduate school of business
Inspiration fermented for five years, however, before Ceccanti began his business masterpiece. Bringing it to fruition, he says, was his experience at Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business, where he earned an MBA and learned how to turn ideas into reality.
He exemplifies the new generation of Rice Business grads, beneficiaries of a two-decade effort to build a nationally recognized department with a strong entrepreneurial focus. Forward-looking deans got the program accredited in 1998. They built a 167,000-square-foot building and increased enrollment, winning accolades and attracting faculty from other prominent schools.
Once an afterthought at a school better known for undergraduate liberal arts, Rice Business is now a regular on national best-of lists. Over the past decade its alumni have created 240 businesses, raised $4 billion in funding and hired 7,787 employees. More than four out of five of the companies are still open.
Not surprisingly, energy dominates the field, according to school's recent survey of 400 alumni, with 33 companies raising $3 billion and creating jobs for 4,704 people. But there are also companies in health care, consulting, consumer goods, financial services and other sectors.
New cranes at the Port of Houston's, Barbours Cut Terminal, adding to Houston economic diversity !
Leslie Plaza Johnson
Three cranes standing 270 feet from dock to apex arrived Monday at Barbours Cut Container Terminal. The cranes, costing a total of $33.5 million, can unload ships wide enough to carry 22 rows of containers. They left China on July 23 and, once installed, will give Barbours Cut seven cranes capable of loading and unloading the larger ships that can now traverse the expanded Panama Canal.
Houston's medical diversity attracts a symposium on wearable robotics
The International Symposium on Wearable & Rehabilitation Robotics (WeRob2017)
2017 International Symposium on Wearable & Rehabilitation Robotics (WeRob2017) will be held for the first time in the USA, and will expand its scope to include rehabilitation robotics. Through the sponsorship of TIRR Memorial Hermann, it will be held from November 5-8, 2017, in Houston, Texas. There will be interactive workshops with engineers, clinicians and end users to promote collaboration among different disciplines, and a product theater demonstrating the latest in wearable exoskeletons and rehabilitation robots. The symposium will showcase the expertise of international speakers from academia, government, industry, and rehabilitation centers, as well as the experience and feedback of end users of robotic devices.
Topic Highlights
Pediatric application of robots
Recent innovations in Wearable Robotic Technology
Computational Neurorehabilitation
Human-robot interaction and interfaces
Solutions for the needs of persons with disabilities and the aging populati
Venture capital at the TMCX helping to fund Houston's economic diversity.
The Texas Medical Center is launching a $25 million venture fund to support early-stage companies developing technologies in the health-care field.
"The TMC Venture Fund is a quintessential example of the Texas Medical Center's ongoing commitment to driving collaboration across our medical city and further establishing Texas as the 'third coast of life sciences' in the United States," said Bill McKeon, TMC president and CEO in a statement Wednesday.
The announcement came on TMCx Demo Day, in which 18 startups in the fields of cardiology/vascular access, emergency management and wearables among others pitched their products to investors and hospital stakeholders, completing their coursework in the center's accelerator program. The latest group of startups raised more than $26.2 million in total funding over the course of the four-month program.
Steel fabrication for the electrical grid creating greater economic diversification..!
Falcon Steel America to open large factory in Conroe
Falcon Steel America plans to reopen a Conroe factory that shut down abruptly last year amid financial woes and was later used as a distribution center for emergency supplies after Hurricane Harvey.
Falcon Steel plans to hire 150 local workers, including welders, fitters, machine operators, truck drivers, quality assurance and control inspectors. The 54-year-old company manufactures transmission towers, electric poles and electric substations, as well as stairs and handrails for major commercial projects .
Providing sustainable self contained space for businesses and residential customers, new Houston firm is adding to the areas economic diversity !
Houston company packs offices into former shipping containers
One of those 40-foot steel boxes integral to international trade is finding new life as a net-zero energy, zero-waste office space in Midtown.
Eight solar panels provide electricity. An atmospheric water generator pulls humidity from the air to make drinking water. The carpet tiles are made from recycled nylon fishing net, and the building comes equipped with compost and recycling bins.
"So we're addressing energy, water and waste all at the same time in this building," said Mike Dieterich, president of the 1½-year-old RISE Industries.
Turning shipping containers into homes, restaurants, bars or offices has grown in popularity over the past few years. The new office space at Wi+CoWork in Midtown is the first from RISE, which was incorporated in Houston in May 2016.
The containers come from suppliers at the Port of Houston, Dieterich said, and they currently cost about $2,000 a piece. The RISE office buildings are then sold for $50 per square foot to $160 per square foot based on how a customer wants to customize it. One 40-foot container is 320 square feet.
Spacecom 2017 Space innovators and entrepreneurs meet in Houston to discuss doing business in space.
More than 2,000 are expected to head to Houston this week for SpaceCom 2017, the third annual Space Commerce Conference and Exposition.
The conference will bring commercial spaceflight leaders and innovators together from Dec. 5 to Dec. 7 to explore how spaceflight technology can drive industry back on the ground and how commercial spaceflight ventures can grow.
SpaceCom will include talks by Peggy Whitson, recently returned from her record-breaking stay on the International Space Station; Robert Lightfoot, NASA's acting administrator; as well as keynote talks from representatives of the Italian Space Agency, United Launch Alliance, Inmarsat, Digital Globe, IBM Watson and more. The full list of speakers is extensive.
"The aerospace industry remains the focal point for SpaceCom, with an emphasis on fostering new public-private partnerships and exploring ways to engage directly with NASA, international space agencies and commercial space entrepreneurs," SpaceCom representatives said in a statement. "In addition, SpaceCom addresses opportunities for terrestrial industries such as agribusiness, energy and maritime to achieve valuable efficiencies through space-enabled Earth observation and satellite services."
"The conference will also shine a spotlight on revolutionary new developmental and research opportunities in space that are now available to the medical and advanced manufacturing fields," they added.
TEACHING CHILDREN COMPUTER CODE, ADDING TO GREATER HOUSTON'S ECONOMIC DIVERSITY !
Pearland learning center Code Ninjas brings game-based education
As jobs in science and technology continue to outpace growth in all other fields, one Pearland company has stepped into the fray to give children a leg up in the techno future.
Code Ninjas, which opened in March, is a learning center that teaches children ages 7-14 how to program computers and robots.
David Graham and Bert Sintuphant, who operated an adult programming boot camp called Coder Camps in Pearland, founded Code Ninjas. They sold their stakes in Coder Camps last year, and together are focusing their efforts on the next generation of computer programmers.
Code Ninjas teaches JavaScript, which is one of the most-used computer languages for websites and web applications. About 94 percent of the top 1 million internet websites are coded with JavaScript, according to internet research and technology company BuiltWith
And this from the Houston Chronicle on the same story,
So far, the Pearland center is the only Code Ninjas open, but Graham says he already has sold 46 franchises for 95 locations in 21 states, with a goal of 100 centers by year's end. Even though it's a relatively unproven business, the drumbeat among parents that their children need to learn to write code or be left behind is a compelling proposition
Most franchisees that have signed up so far also are in suburban areas, and the cost of starting and owning a Code Ninjas center runs from $128,000 to $223,000, according to the company's website. There's a $40,000 franchise fee, but that's cut in half for now for "early adopters."
Genetic-based dating app works to find true love using your DNA
The first question out of Asma Mirza's mouth when she makes a new acquaintance these days is, "Are you single?" If she gets a yes, the 27-year-old CEO quickly follows up with a request to swab the inside of her new friend's cheek, in hopes it will help them find true love.
Often, people look at her like she's crazy. They'll ask, "What does my DNA have to do with love?"
According to an ever-growing body of scientific research, the answer is: quite a bit. That's why Mirza and 26-year-old geneticist Brittany Barreto have spent the last year huddled in their downtown Houston office, working steadily to launch the nation's first genetics-based dating app, Pheramor.
What will 2018 bring in the way of economic diversification for the Greater Houston economy? Here are selected (by me)excerpts from an article in todays Chronicle that outlines predictions of some local experts on Houston's economy in sectors not directly tied to the oil and gas industry..
Houston’s economic growth will accelerate in 2018, but the metro area won’t regain its normal pace of expansion as the energy sector continues its recovery from the recent oil bust, said Patrick Jankowski, senior vice president of research at the Greater Houston Partnership.
HOUSTON’S STARTUP SCENE WILL BLOSSOM
Companies specializing in interconnected devices known as the ‘internet of things’ and data science startups are poised to attract more venture capital. “This is the stuff that will allow the oil and gas companies to continue to drill and continue to produce at higher margins,” said Blair Garrou, managing director of Houston investment firm Mercury Fund. Houston Exponential, an initiative for boosting Houston’s appeal to technology investors and innovators, is expected to break ground on a tech innovation district. A new investment fund, HX Venture Fund, is also expected to get off the ground in 2018. “All of these things are coming together at the same time, so I think 2018 will be pretty exciting,” Garrou said. Andrea Rumbaugh
THE BOOM CONTINUES AT PORT HOUSTON
The container boom and steel market recovery should continue in 2018 at Port Houston, Executive Director Roger Guenther said. Containers passing through its terminals are expected to increase 8 percent and steel imports by 3 percent. The port also will add three cranes to handle larger ships coming through the Panama Canal. The $37.5 million investment will bring the port’s total to 13 cranes at Bayport and Barbours Cut container terminals capable of unloading the larger ships. Andrea Rumbaugh
HOUSTON AIRPORTS GET UPGRADES
New technology, flights and construction will come to the Houston Airport System, chief operating officer Jesus Saenz Jr. said. Terminal D at Bush Intercontinental Airport will get an automated security lane. United Airlines will begin service to Sydney, Australia, this month. Southwest Airlines is expected to expand its international service at Hobby Airport. The expansion of the international terminal at Bush should get underway, too. Andrea Rumbaugh
INDUSTRIAL REAL ESTATE STRENGTH
Developers will continue to see strong demand for industrial real estate, driven largely by e-commerce distribution centers. In fact, 2018 could see another 1 million-square-foot distribution center break ground, said Robert Clay, owner of Houston-based Clay Development. Rising oil prices will also help manufacturers, which in turn could spur more industrial development. Paul Takahashi
THE GATEWAY TO TEXAS RETAILING
More retailers looking to open stores in Texas will target Houston as a first stop, predicted Jason Baker, a principal with real estate brokerage Baker Katz. “I am consistently on the phone with retailers wanting to start in Houston.” Katherine Blunt
CRITICAL YEAR’ FOR ELECTRONIC SPORTS
While 2017 became the year electronic sports, or esports, formalized itself with major tournaments, franchises and a salary system for players, 2018 will test the industry’s ability to keep the momentum going, said Sebastian Park, director of esports development for the Houston Rockets. “It’s going to be a critical year,” Park said. The Rockets team, through its billionaire owner Tilman Fertitta, has created an esports team called Clutch Gaming to compete in the 2018 North American League Championship Series. Ileana Najarro
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