Ones to Watch: Rawand Rasheed

When Rawand Rasheed decided to leave his job at NASA, he knew the agency would be fine without him. But the company he envisioned—Helix Earth—wouldn’t exist unless he took the leap.

“Whether I stayed or left, NASA would be fine,” he said. “But I knew that if I didn’t push this, nobody else would.” Helix Earth’s namesake technology, a helical filter Rasheed helped invent for droplet capture in space, was about to get adapted for Earth.
“One of the main things that really differentiates this company is our filtration system. It’s our droplet capture process,” Rasheed explained.

The filter consists of a rigid, porous material embedded with helical channels “like a rigid sponge” that spin droplets out of airflow and absorb them, much like water soaking into a paper towel. Originally developed for NASA’s Orion spacecraft, the system now forms the backbone of a commercial platform with wide potential, from HVAC to carbon dioxide and pollutant capture.

Helix Earth recently shifted its business focus to what customers really want: “Most of the industry cares about saving money up front,” Rasheed said. That shift led the company to concentrate on ventilation—one of the fastest-growing, most expensive, and energy-intensive segments in HVAC, according to Rasheed—with the aim to reduce cost and long-term energy using its filtration technology originally designed for space. 

To read the more about Rawand Rasheed and his work, read his full profile in the Watch List 2025.

Sarah Alburakeh is strategic content editor.