Startup Houston

I had a good time and several great conversations at HTC’s Emerging Technology Council (ETC) kickoff meeting this evening.  In a nutshell, the HTC ETC’s purpose is to help foster emerging technology companies in Houston and to do so they are looking to several different committees to provide support in key areas of importance for emerging companies.  Below is a list of the committees and a brief summary of what they will be doing.

• Strategy Committee
  • Participate in Opportunity Houston efforts
  • Interview 50 companies.
    • What kind of expansion projects are they planning and how can they help
• Summit Committee
  • How to build a company? 
    • Partner with large companies
    • Events
      • Summits
      • Super Summits
      • Corporate Connections
    • The next Learning Summit is in March 2008
• Partner Committee
  • Partner Organizations:  HTC, MIT Forum, Texchange, UH SBDC, WITI, UH CEI, AWC
  • Develop calendar
  • Provide info for each organization as ‘concierge’
  • Events
    • Planning Meeting - Sept
    • Rollout of calendar in Oct / Nov
• Capital Connection Committee
  • Facilitate access to capital
  • Jeff Williams - Mainspring Partners
  • Matchmaker with Funding
  • Facilitate connections
  • Planning meeting week of Sept 3rd
• Membership Committee
  • Share the vision…Speakers Bureau
  • Target top 50 Technology Companies

Here are also a couple photos of the event:

I believe that what the HTC is doing has great potential to improve the business prospects for emerging technology companies in Houston.  The key here will be in how well these committees can execute against that vision.  Josh and I are planning on being involved to bring our experience (and yours as well) to the table to help benefit the startup community as a whole.

Were you at the HTC ETC kickoff?  Let us know if we missed anything and also what you thought about the event in our comments section.