Greentown Houston Agenda + Venue Information

This event has ended—check out our recap of Greentown Houston’s 2022 Climatetech Summit here and view recordings of all of the keynotes, panels, and pitches here!

Climatetech Summit 2022 was a day of hands-on exploration with our world-changing startups and their climatetech solutions; keynotes and sessions featuring leaders across climatetech, finance, policy, and justice; and networking with key climate action pioneers.

Greentown Houston Agenda

All times are CT.

8:00 – CHECK-IN + BREAKFAST

9:30 – WELCOME + THE ENERGY TRANSITION IN HOUSTON

Featuring InnovationMap Houston Editor Natalie Harms.

Greentown Labs’ Head of Houston Incubator + VP of Innovation Juliana Garaizar will share reflections on the momentum in Houston’s energy transition ecosystem, what’s next for our startups’ groundbreaking technologies, and more.

9:45 – SETTING THE SCENE: ACCELERATING THE ENERGY TRANSITION

Featuring Capgemini Executive Vice President – Sustainability Lead for the Americas Sol Salinas.

10:00 – RAPID DECARBONIZATION: IS HOUSTON READY TO LEAD?

Featuring HX Venture Fund Venture Partner Aleece Hobson, REAL Executive Director Kay McCall, and Syzygy Plasmonics VP of Commercialization Madhav Acharya, and Chevron Technology Ventures President Jim Gable; moderated by Greentown Labs Chief of Staff Lara Cottingham.

Commercializing climatetech promises sweeping environmental benefits and economic opportunities, yet we must overcome many obstacles to commercialize at the pace necessary to tackle climate change. This panel will bring together experts from across the energy transition ecosystem—including a startup, a corporate executive, an investor, and an energy transition professional—to offer perspectives on how Houston can combine its industry expertise and workforce, the region’s growing population of climatetech startups, and the unprecedented climate capital that exists today to not only commercialize climate solutions, but commercialize them quickly.

10:45 – GREENTOWN LABS STARTUP PITCHES

Featuring Intention, Lignium Energy, R&B Technology Group, Pressure Corp, and Micronic Technologies.

11:00 – FIRESIDE CHAT

Featuring Greater Houston Partnership Executive Director of HETI and SVP, Energy Transition Jane Stricker and SUPERGirls SHINE Founder Loretta Williams Gurnell.

11:20 – GREENTOWN LABS STARTUP PITCHES

Featuring Applied Bioplastics, Kanin Energy, CarTwin, CZAR-Power, and Dash Clean Energy.

11:35 – DIARIES OF DEPLOYMENT: PERSPECTIVES FROM A CORPORATE-STARTUP COLLABORATION

Featuring United Airlines Ventures Managing Director Andrew Chang, Revterra CEO Ben Jawdat, Equinor Ventures Investment Manager Parker Malone, and Cemvita Factory CEO Moji Karimi; moderated by Greentown Labs Senior Manager of Partnerships Nour Ghadanfar.

When it comes to achieving deployment, corporations’ global footprints can serve as springboards to propel climatetech innovation out of the lab. In this session, you’ll hear directly from a corporate and startup that have partnered successfully as they share what worked, what didn’t, and what advice they would give startups today.

12:10 – GREENTOWN LABS STARTUP PITCHES

Featuring Sustonable, Terrapin Geothermics, Veloce Energy, Excipio Energy, and Wootz.

12:25 – KEYNOTE FIRESIDE CHAT

Featuring Senior Advisor to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Chief Commercialization Officer and Commercialization Executive, Office of Technology Transitions Jim Fritz and Greentown Labs Head of Houston Incubator and VP of Innovation Juliana Garaizar.

12:50 – CLOSING REMARKS

Featuring Greentown Labs Senior Manager, DEI Program Herb Lozano and Head of Houston Incubator and VP of Innovation Juliana Garaizar.

1:00 – LUNCH

2:00 – 4:00 – GREENTOWN LABS MEMBER SHOWCASE

The Greentown Labs Climatetech Startup Showcase is your chance to meet the entrepreneurs who are changing the world. Join us to speak with Greentown founders, learn about their climate solutions, and make valuable connections. The showcase will highlight climatetech companies innovating across the key carbon-emitting sectors—electricity, agriculture, buildings, manufacturing, and transportation—and on resiliency, adaptation, and platform solutions.

3:00 – 4:00 – WORKSHOP: DESIGNING A PATH TO THE HYDROGEN HUB

Hosted by Climatetech Summit Champion Sponsor Capgemini.

This interactive workshop will help reframe challenges the Houston ecosystem faces using a design thinking framework, which helps systematically extract, teach, learn, and apply human-centered techniques to solve problems in creative and innovative ways. 

Join us to discuss how we can use this technique to advance the rate of innovation in Houston across diverse teams, as well as unlock opportunities that advance the development of Houston’s Hydrogen Hub.

4:00 – 7:00 – NETWORKING RECEPTION

Featured Speakers

Corey Thompson

CEO, CarTwin

Alex Blum

Chief Impact Officer, Applied Bioplastics

Aleece Hobson

Venture Partner, HX Venture Fund

Lara Cottingham

Chief of Staff

Nour Ghadanfar

Senior Director of Partnership Programs

Natalie Harms

Editor, InnovationMap Houston

Olivia Espy Huntington

COO, Wootz

Sol Salinas

Executive Vice President – Sustainability Lead for the Americas, Capgemini

Nisha Desai

Founder + CEO, Intention

Parker Malone

Investment Manager, Equinor

Gray Alton

VP of Project Development, Terrapin Geothermics

George Hernandez

Managing Director, R&B Technology Company

Enrique Guzman

CEO + Founder, Lignium Energy

Karen Sorber

CEO + Co-founder, Micronic Technologies

Roy Robinson

CEO, Excipio Energy

Jeffery Wolfe

CEO + Co-founder, Veloce Energy

Moji Karimi

Co-founder + CEO, Cemvita Factory

Herb Lozano

EDIJ Senior Program Manager

Janice Tran

CEO + Co-founder, Kanin Energy

Anthony “Tony” Frisone

Co-founder and CEO, CZAR-POWER

Gordon Dash

Founder and Principal, Dash Clean Energy

Ben Jawdat

Founder + CEO, Revterra

Andrew Chang

Managing Director – Corporate Development, United Airlines Ventures

Kay McCall

Board Chair, Renewable Energy Alliance Houston

Jim Gable

President, Chevron Technology Ventures

Loretta Williams Gurnell

Founder and Executive Director, SUPERGirls SHINE Foundation

Jim Fritz

Senior Advisor to the Chief Commercialization Officer, U.S. Department of Energy and Commercialization Executive, Office of Technology Transitions

John Happ

CEO, Pressure Corp

Event Sponsors

The 2022 Climatetech Summit is made possible by the following sponsors. We thank them for their commitment to climate action!