What does it truly mean to be an entrepreneur?
Starting and running a successful business is no easy feat, and most don’t possess the fortitude and resilience it takes to navigate the road that is the entrepreneurial journey.
As 90% of startup businesses fail, it is understandable why many shy away from taking the leap to start a venture. The title of 'entrepreneur' sounds tempting, but far fewer are willing to embrace the risks and relentless effort that comes with it.
This is precisely what makes the rising entrepreneur so remarkable. They are driven by the belief that their idea, invention, product, or service has the potential to make a meaningful impact on the market. The entrepreneur has to be steadfast in their venture, fully committed to their goals, and willing to walk the precarious road of launching and scaling a business.
Thankfully, the Innov8Hub “Innovator to Founder” program has once again attracted a group of steadfast entrepreneurs ready to take their ideas to the next level. Offered each semester at the UH Technology Bridge, the 12-week program helps early-stage founders commercialize their innovations through mentorship, resources, and a final Pitch Day designed to launch their ventures and attract funding.
Taking a look at this latest batch of innovators, it’s easy to share in their excitement as they work to take their ideas to the next level.
Our first member is Dr. Mark Meier, a physics professor at UH and founder of SEISMONICS. Meier has developed a device that pumps low-frequency sound waves into the earth to identify oil and mineral deposits – an innovation with major implications for the energy industry.
Meier’s device enhances subsurface imaging through seismic inversion, a technique that reveals not just rock layer boundaries but also the properties of the materials between them.
“Seismic inversion can tell you not just where the boundaries are, but also what the mechanical impedance of the material between the boundaries is,” Meier said. “With seismic inversion, it turns out the low frequencies are the most critical.” This low-frequency approach could revolutionize the efficiency of O&G exploration, helping upstream companies make better drilling decisions and significantly cut costs.
Dr. Ariful Bhuiyan, a professor in the Mechanical Engineering department at UH-Clear Lake and the founder of Mecha Stress Block, a startup focused on enhancing hands-on engineering education.
His flagship product—the Stress Block—is a device designed to analyze how different materials behave under applied loads. By capturing real-time deflection data, it allows users to calculate material stiffness and understand structural responses under various conditions. While it has valuable applications in research and testing, Mecha Stress Block also serves as a powerful teaching tool that helps high school students visualize core engineering concepts, bridging the gap between theory and practice in STEM education.
Moving along, we have Dr. Samaneh Karami, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Houston and founder of LactoCyte Diagnostics LLC, a biotechnology company transforming breast cancer detection for young lactating women. Karami is pioneering the first-of-its-kind, non-invasive, milk-based liquid biopsy that leverages the unique biological properties of breast milk to enable earlier, highly sensitive detection and risk assessment.
Traditional screening tools like mammograms and ultrasounds often fall short in this population due to physiological breast changes during lactation. LactoCyte’s patented solution offers a pain-free, radiation-free alternative that addresses this critical gap in women’s healthcare. With this breakthrough, Karami is redefining preventive breast cancer screening—empowering young mothers with more accessible, responsive, and life-saving care.
Following in the spirit of innovation driven by unmet medical needs, Dr. Marzia Cescon, Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Houston, has launched GlycoMatiq LLC, a startup focused on transforming diabetes care through biomedical technology.
GlycoMatiq’s proprietary system is designed to replicate the insulin-regulating function of a healthy pancreas – with the goal of improving glycemic control, enhancing quality of life, and reducing long-term complications for patients with diabetes. By addressing the persistent shortcomings of current insulin therapies, Dr. Cescon and her team are developing a solution that could ease the burden of the disease on both patients and healthcare providers alike.
Another cohort member making an impact in healthcare innovation is Kevin Pham. Founder of OmniTek Solutions, LLC, Pham is tackling an overlooked challenge in healthcare: the physical strain of manually moving hospital beds. His product, the BedBot, is a motorized, remote-controlled device that attaches directly to existing beds, eliminating the need for teams to manually move them. By enhancing bed mobility without requiring hospitals to invest in entirely new equipment, BedBot offers a cost-effective solution that reduces workplace injuries and improves operational efficiency in medical facilities.
“My experience in the Innov8Hub program challenged many of my assumptions and pushed me to refine my approach,” Kevin said, reflecting on his time in the cohort. “The feedback I received helped me view industry problems from new perspectives and identify markets beyond just healthcare. The coaches’ knowledge, experience, and patience made the journey incredibly impactful.”
Using his expertise to fuse exercise science with immersive technology, Dr. William “Bill” Amonette, Director of Kinesiology at UH-Clear Lake, is the founder of High Performance Innovations (HPI). His company is developing training tools that merge exercise science with cutting-edge technology to improve health and performance.
Amonette’s first product is a stand-up paddleboard ergometer integrated with virtual reality, offering evidence-based fitness and balance training that feels more like play than rehabilitation. Designed to build strength, endurance, and stability, the tool has broad appeal, particularly for older adults or individuals recovering from injury, by making advanced rehab both engaging and accessible.
Next up, we have Len Johns Shaji, an undergraduate computer engineering student at the University of Houston, who is bringing real-time intelligence to aviation safety. His startup, Flight Guard AI, uses a proprietary data analyzer to monitor live flight data, detecting emerging safety risks before they escalate.
Unlike traditional systems that analyze black box data after an incident, Flight Guardian AI enables early intervention by alerting air traffic control and ground crews in real time. In an industry where seconds matter, Len’s solution offers airlines a chance to move from reactive to predictive safety, minimizing human error incidents, and enhancing passenger trust.
Continuing the theme of AI-powered innovation, our next member looks to revolutionize how we understand and respond to environmental challenges. Deveshwar Singh is the founder of Dharti.AI, a climate-tech startup delivering next-generation environmental intelligence. Dharti.AI’s Earth Intelligence Platform integrates a network of smart sensors with advanced AI to provide real-time, high-resolution forecasts for weather, air quality, and climate conditions.
Unlike traditional public datasets, which are often delayed and lack detail, Dharti.AI offers hourly updates with significantly higher spatial accuracy, empowering stakeholders in energy, urban planning, and public health to make timely, informed decisions. By addressing the critical need for more precise and actionable environmental data, Singh is giving communities the tools they need to stay ahead of the weather and the challenges it brings.
Last but certainly not least, we have Logan Smalley. A full-time musician and graduate student studying entrepreneurship at UH, Smalley is developing a CRM platform to help talent bookers find the right acts more efficiently. His startup, Key Performers Indicator (KPI), is an online forum that connects managers of small- to mid-sized venues with available musicians and bands, streamlining the process of matching the right talent to the right stage.
Smalley shared some advice to those entrepreneurs who are considering joining Innov8Hub to help them kickstart their venture:
“Be prepared, Innov8Hub delivers such valuable knowledge that you won’t want to miss a single session. Strap in and get ready to drink from a firehose of insight and wisdom from people who’ve actually made it!”
As each of these innovators prepare to pitch their ideas and step into the next phase of their ventures, one thing is clear: Entrepreneurship is not about the ease of the path, but the impact of the journey. And with support from programs like Innov8Hub, these founders are proving that with the combination of education, preparation, and determination, bold ideas can become transformative realities.