Gaby Rowe

Gaby Rowe, project lead for Texas' Operation Connectivity, was born into a family of educators and social activists on the Upper West Side of New York City. While her circuitous career has taken her from school principal to technology innovator to education policy and implementation consultant, Rowe’s focus has always been on high-impact projects that transform the lives of young people and enable economic empowerment and opportunity. She began her career as head of school at The Mandell School where she was engaged in the transformation of local education policy and was an adviser on the development of Universal PK. Rowe moved to Houston in 2014 to take the helm of The Village School, a 2,000-student independent school in West Houston where she oversaw an $80 million campus expansion and transformed the school into a tech-enabled STEM institution focused on 21st century skill development and 4th industrial revolution careers. In 2018, she became the CEO of Station Houston, a startup accelerator, before becoming the founding executive director of the Ion, a $100 million innovation hub in Houston spearheaded by Rice University. In that role, Rowe secured the support of Intel, Microsoft, The City of Houston and others to establish the Ion Smart and Resilient Cities Accelerator. She served on the boards of Houston Exponential and TXRX, and recently joined the advisory board for the Houston Methodist Institute for Technology Innovation and Education. Rowe currently leads Operation Connectivity for Texas Governor Greg Abbot and the Texas Education Agency, an initiative focused on closing the digital equity gap for students across Texas.