Congratulations to Josh Tabin on being featured in the Moneymakers / Business section of the Houston Chronicle today. Here is a quick excerpt:
Tabin recently spoke with Chronicle technology reporter Brad Hem about the state of Houston’s tech sector.
Q: One of Houston’s biggest promoters of technology is Walter Ulrich, who leads the Houston Technology Center. His vision calls for Houston to become an epicenter for development and commercialization of technology in five years. How realistic is that?
A: I think it’s as realistic as people want to make it. No one can argue that Houston doesn’t have the resources to make it happen. Rice University is a flagship research university for the country.
They have a fantastic engineering program. It’s a major center for nanotechnology. The health science center here is a fantastic place for innovation in the life sciences and biotech area. There’s a lot of commercialization that happens out of there. You’ve got NASA with a major presence. When it comes to energy, Houston is second to none. So when you look at the industry, there’s a huge presence here.
You can read the complete article and more of Josh’s insight here. Also, a big thanks to Brad Hem and the Houston Chronicle for the coverage. As I’m sure you are finding out, there are a lot more great startup companies to write about here in Houston.
That was a great interview and it really shed some light on the current state of affairs for startups and funding sources around Houston. Also, we couldn’t be happier about the mention of Houston Technology Center and what our collaboration means for this city. Keep up the good work.
Marc Nathan
From the interview: “No one can argue that Houston doesn’t have the resources to make it happen.”
Yeah, really. There’s a great deal of tech resources here, but little interaction. Besides NASA, the universities and the Medical Center, the energy business is much more high-tech and computationally intensive than most realize.
“There are some challenges because there is a lack of collaboration at the higher levels within the city.”
I don’t think it’s impossible for a region with these sorts of resources to replicate what’s happened in Silicon Valley, but the challenge must be viewed as one of building an entire entrepreneurial ecosystem, not just pushing “hot” technologies.
There needs to be more strategic thinking. In my experience, there’s either uninformed disinterest or (slightly informed) excitement about opportunities, neither of which really involves the kind of long-term commitment needed to build a strong local R&D and investment community.