Hardtech Fellowship Names 11 Innovators for First Houston Cohort

A national organization focused on hard technology has named its 2024 cohort of innovators, which includes the inaugural Houston-based cohort.

Activate nominated 62 members and 50 companies for its latest class, which spans from Berkley, California — where the organization is based — to Boston, New York, and Houston. Additionally, Activate Anywhere, the program’s virtual and remote cohort, was named. According to Activate, it received more than 1,000 applications.

“It’s people, not ideas alone, that move the world forward. It’s through the energy and determination of brilliant scientists and engineers that we see real progress,” Activate CEO Cyrus Wadia said in a press release. “Our Activate Fellows and alumni are already creating innovative solutions that are making a measurable difference. We’re excited to support the next 62 visionaries who will lead the charge to solve our most pressing problems with breakthrough science and technology.”

This is the first year Activate has hosted a Houston-based cohort. The organization initially announced its expansion early last year. The inaugural cohort includes 11 fellows from energy, materials, life sciences, space and other sectors.

Houston Scholars selected for the Class of 2024 include:

• Krish Mehta, founder and CEO of Phoenix Materials, a company that decarbonizes concrete from industrial waste.
• Gabriel Cossio, founder and CEO of Nanoscale Labs, which is developing a high-throughput, low-cost nanofabrication system.
• Matthew McDermott, Founder and CEO of Refound Materials, a materials technology company developing more efficient synthesis recipes for accelerated materials discovery.
• Alec Ajnsztajn, Founder and CEO of Coflux Purification, a company creating a product that allows industries and water suppliers to cost-effectively eliminate unnecessary chemicals to provide clean drinking water at a fraction of current energy consumption.
• Ryan DuChanois and Yang Xia, co-founders of Solidec, a Houston-based startup redefining chemical manufacturing.
• Meagan Pitcher, co-founder and CEO of Bairitone Health, which brings advanced imaging diagnostics to the home environment.
• Wei Meng, co-founder and CEO of LumiStrain, a startup offering new mechanical strain mapping technology.
• Sonia Dagan of Atolla Tech, who is developing a lidar and machine learning algorithm to identify and quantify airborne insects.
• Rodrigo Alvarez-Icaza, founder and CEO of Elysium Robotics, a company that replaces electric motors with muscle-like actuators to enable the mass deployment of high-performance, low-cost robotic systems.
• Blake Herren, CEO and co-founder of Raven Space Systems, which is modernizing composite manufacturing with 3D printing and Industry 4.0 solutions to build the factories of the future.

——

This article was originally published on EnergyCapital.