Greentown Houston Agenda + Venue Information
On Nov. 2, we’re inviting you, your colleagues, and all the climate champions in your life into our incubator for 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.
