As part of its effort to expand to the region’s periphery, Houston Exponential will officially launch the Fort Bend Innovation Council Sept. 29 in Sugar Land.
The initiative was created in partnership with the Fort Bend Economic Development Council, the Houston startup hub The Cannon and startup development nonprofits Born Global Ventures and Code Launch.
It’s meant to bring together local innovators and startup entrepreneurs and provide them with resources to grow their business.
Houston Exponential, or HX, an organization focused on improving Greater Houston’s innovation economy, announced the partnership with Fort Bend County in June.
The Innovation Council is the official launch of the collaboration, said Rachelle Kanak, executive vice president for marketing and operations at the Fort Bend Economic Development Council.
“We’re trying to build our ecosystem, and this is the first step to doing that,” she said. “Providing the programming, providing access to resources, educating and updating the founders and the makers and the entrepreneurs and the innovators on all the things that they need to know to help them be successful.”
With a high-income, highly skilled and highly educated population that is by many measures the most diverse in the country, Fort Bend County is in a great position to build its innovation ecosystem, Kanak said.
Fort Bend County marks the first expansion for HX since it was acquired earlier this year by Houston-based Gow Cos., but it won’t be the last, said Lawson Gow, partner at Gow Cos. and interim CEO of Houston Exponential.
“When we acquired Houston Exponential, it was an immediate priority of ours to expand Houston Exponential’s reach to the entire sprawl of Houston,” he said. “Not just in the Innovation Corridor, not just in specific areas or buildings, … but really trying to unlock entrepreneurship across all of the greater Houston area.”
Gow, who founded the Houston startup hub The Cannon, authored a report about Fort Bend County’s innovation potential that was released in 2020.
“And in that process, I just got really bullish on the impact that an innovation initiative in Fort Bend County would have,” he said.
For future expansion, HX is looking at other communities around the Houston region, including Pearland, Conroe, Clear Lake and Galveston, where The Cannon already has a coworking space.
Gow expects to have more expansion announcements in the coming weeks.
The members of the Fort Bend Innovation Council have not been determined yet, but the idea is for them to be leaders and stakeholders of different backgrounds who meet regularly “to push innovation activity forward,” Gow said. The hope is to grow the council to a few dozen members over time.
Sugar Land-based construction software company Heavy Construction Systems Specialists will host the Sept. 29 launch event at its building at 13151 W. Airport Blvd. in Sugar Land.
There will be a panel of founders in Fort Bend County, the Fort Bend Economic Development Council and corporate innovators among others. After the presentation, attendees are invited to mix and mingle.
Houston Exponential was originally formed as a nonprofit in October 2017 through the combination of the Houston Technology Center, the Greater Houston Partnership's innovation roundtable and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner’s Technology & Innovation Task Force.
Under Gow Cos., which also owns sports festival provider Pokatok and sports tech accelerator Pokatok Labs, it is transitioning into a for-profit business.
