How tech boot camps can help solve the Houston innovation equation

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New, alternative education pathways like technology boot camps bring more diversity to our tech talent pools, a critical component of fostering innovation that is still missing at most technology-focused companies. Getty Images

It's been a little over a year since Houston lost out on the Amazon HQ2 bid and left the city pondering its approach to innovation. Houston is known for taking risks and bouncing back from adversity. We're known for growth and entrepreneurship. But are we still known for innovation? Are we positioned for growth as a creative class and digital skills city?

It's my belief that we need to invest in the professional skills of our local workforce and ensure we can attract companies that will help our city and Houstonians thrive. Amazon pointed us in the right direction. It highlighted our need of more professional upskilling programs and increased investment in the city's innovation infrastructure.

At Rice University, we listened, and launched fast-track, intensive tech training programs designed specifically for working adults to help solve these problems. We launched a pilot program in late 2018, a data analytics boot camp in partnership with a national workforce accelerator called Trilogy Education. It was met with such an enthusiastic response from students that we are expanding the initiative by adding programs in cybersecurity and other high demand fields later this year.

These tech boot camps are designed to augment Rice's other efforts to foster innovation in our community like a recent $100 million investment in a new innovation hub for all of Houston and an already ambitious innovation and technology ecosystem, highlighted by the Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, or LILIE, and the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship. Combined, we hope these efforts will help Houston to secure its position as a magnet for technology employers and workers alike.

By many standards, Houston's tech industry is booming. Digital middle-skill jobs — the kinds that provide a stepping stone between lower-paid non-tech roles and high-earning careers in tech — represent 42 percent of overall job postings in Houston. And these jobs are on the rise. Between 2017 and 2018, the number of Houston job postings requiring web development skills rose by 57 percent, earning the city 6th-place ranking among the top 10 U.S. cities for coding job growth.

With numbers like these, it's easy to grow complacent. But Houston is by no means immune to the widening digital skills gap that is holding back business growth nationwide. And unless we create programs to support upskilling and career mobility, even the people currently driving Houston's tech renaissance may struggle to keep their skills sets up to date.

These programs help us address Amazon's core area of critique: innovation. This is something Houston has historically been known for; in 1969 alone, we helped put the first astronaut on the moon and the first artificial heart in a patient. But like all important skills, innovation must be regularly nurtured, enhanced, and relearned.

New, alternative education pathways like technology boot camps bring more diversity to our tech talent pools, a critical component of fostering innovation that is still missing at most technology-focused companies. These employers are starting to look beyond traditional degrees for people who can simply prove they have the skills for the job. The relatively lower barrier to entry for a technology boot camp opens the door for candidates of all races, genders, and walks of life to bring their unique perspectives and insights to an industry sorely in need of more diversity.

As one of the country's most racially diverse metros, Houston reflects the nation's demographic future, and can make a unique contribution to the diversity of our workforce. We already rank among the top five best U.S. cities for women in tech (number four, to be exact). And if the demographics of Rice's earliest boot camp enrollees are any indication, a widespread rollout of these kinds of programs may be a part of Houston's ability to garner the number one spot in coming years. Among our boot camp students to date, 35 percent are white, 20 percent are Hispanic, 17 percent are African American, and 23 percent are Asian. Women made up 25 percent of our first class, a good start that we plan to improve.

Houston has the potential to become a nationwide leader in tech innovation. The problems we face in getting there are complicated, but like all equations, they can be solved with resilience and hard work.

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Robert Bruce is the dean of Rice University's Susanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies.

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Houston researchers develop material to boost AI speed and cut energy use

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A team of researchers at the University of Houston has developed an innovative thin-film material that they believe will make AI devices faster and more energy efficient.

AI data centers consume massive amounts of electricity and use large cooling systems to operate, adding a strain on overall energy consumption.

“AI has made our energy needs explode,” Alamgir Karim, Dow Chair and Welch Foundation Professor at the William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UH, explained in a news release. “Many AI data centers employ vast cooling systems that consume large amounts of electricity to keep the thousands of servers with integrated circuit chips running optimally at low temperatures to maintain high data processing speed, have shorter response time and extend chip lifetime.”

In a report recently published in ACS Nano, Karim and a team of researchers introduced a specialized two-dimensional thin film dielectric, or electric insulator. The film, which does not store electricity, could be used to replace traditional, heat-generating components in integrated circuit chips, which are essential hardware powering AI.

The thinner film material aims to reduce the significant energy cost and heat produced by the high-performance computing necessary for AI.

Karim and his former doctoral student, Maninderjeet Singh, used Nobel prize-winning organic framework materials to develop the film. Singh, now a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University, developed the materials during his doctoral training at UH, along with Devin Shaffer, a UH professor of civil engineering, and doctoral student Erin Schroeder.

Their study shows that dielectrics with high permittivity (high-k) store more electrical energy and dissipate more energy as heat than those with low-k materials. Karim focused on low-k materials made from light elements, like carbon, that would allow chips to run cooler and faster.

The team then created new materials with carbon and other light elements, forming covalently bonded sheetlike films with highly porous crystalline structures using a process known as synthetic interfacial polymerization. Then they studied their electronic properties and applications in devices.

According to the report, the film was suitable for high-voltage, high-power devices while maintaining thermal stability at elevated operating temperatures.

“These next-generation materials are expected to boost the performance of AI and conventional electronics devices significantly,” Singh added in the release.

Houston to become 'global leader in brain health' and more innovation news

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Editor's note: The most-read Houston innovation news this month is centered around brain health, from the launch of Project Metis to Rice''s new Amyloid Mechanism and Disease Center. Here are the five most popular InnovationMap stories from December 1-15, 2025:

1. Houston institutions launch Project Metis to position region as global leader in brain health

The Rice Brain Institute, UTMB's Moody Brain Health Institute and Memorial Hermann’s comprehensive neurology care department will lead Project Metis. Photo via Unsplash.

Leaders in Houston's health care and innovation sectors have joined the Center for Houston’s Future to launch an initiative that aims to make the Greater Houston Area "the global leader of brain health." The multi-year Project Metis, named after the Greek goddess of wisdom and deep thought, will be led by the newly formed Rice Brain Institute, The University of Texas Medical Branch's Moody Brain Health Institute and Memorial Hermann’s comprehensive neurology care department. The initiative comes on the heels of Texas voters overwhelmingly approving a ballot measure to launch the $3 billion, state-funded Dementia Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (DPRIT). Continue reading.

2.Rice University researchers unveil new model that could sharpen MRI scans

New findings from a team of Rice University researchers could enhance MRI clarity. Photo via Unsplash.

Researchers at Rice University, in collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, have developed a new model that could lead to sharper imaging and safer diagnostics using magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI. In a study published in The Journal of Chemical Physics, the team of researchers showed how they used the Fokker-Planck equation to better understand how water molecules respond to contrast agents in a process known as “relaxation.” Continue reading.

3. Rice University launches new center to study roots of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s

The new Amyloid Mechanism and Disease Center will serve as the neuroscience branch of Rice’s Brain Institute. Photo via Unsplash.

Rice University has launched its new Amyloid Mechanism and Disease Center, which aims to uncover the molecular origins of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other amyloid-related diseases. The center will bring together Rice faculty in chemistry, biophysics, cell biology and biochemistry to study how protein aggregates called amyloids form, spread and harm brain cells. It will serve as the neuroscience branch of the Rice Brain Institute, which was also recently established. Continue reading.

4. Baylor center receives $10M NIH grant to continue rare disease research

BCM's Center for Precision Medicine Models has received funding that will allow it to study more complex diseases. Photo via Getty Images

Baylor College of Medicine’s Center for Precision Medicine Models has received a $10 million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health that will allow it to continue its work studying rare genetic diseases. The Center for Precision Medicine Models creates customized cell, fly and mouse models that mimic specific genetic variations found in patients, helping scientists to better understand how genetic changes cause disease and explore potential treatments. Continue reading.

5. Luxury transportation startup connects Houston with Austin and San Antonio

Shutto is a new option for Houston commuters. Photo courtesy of Shutto

Houston business and leisure travelers have a luxe new way to hop between Texas cities. Transportation startup Shutto has launched luxury van service connecting San Antonio, Austin, and Houston, offering travelers a comfortable alternative to flying or long-haul rideshare. Continue reading.

Texas falls to bottom of national list for AI-related job openings

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For all the hoopla over AI in the American workforce, Texas’ share of AI-related job openings falls short of every state except Pennsylvania and Florida.

A study by Unit4, a provider of cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) software for businesses, puts Texas at No. 49 among the states with the highest share of AI-focused jobs. Just 9.39 percent of Texas job postings examined by Unit4 mentioned AI.

Behind Texas are No. 49 Pennsylvania (9.24 percent of jobs related to AI) and No. 50 Florida (9.04 percent). One spot ahead of Texas, at No. 47, is California (9.56 percent).

Unit4 notes that Texas’ and Florida’s low rankings show “AI hiring concentration isn’t necessarily tied to population size or GDP.”

“For years, California, Texas, and New York dominated tech hiring, but that’s changing fast. High living costs, remote work culture, and the democratization of AI tools mean smaller states can now compete,” Unit4 spokesperson Mark Baars said in a release.

The No. 1 state is Wyoming, where 20.38 percent of job openings were related to AI. The Cowboy State was followed by Vermont at No. 2 (20.34 percent) and Rhode Island at No. 3 (19.74 percent).

“A company in Wyoming can hire an AI engineer from anywhere, and startups in Vermont can build powerful AI systems without being based in Silicon Valley,” Baars added.

The study analyzed LinkedIn job postings across all 50 states to determine which ones were leading in AI employment. Unit4 came up with percentages by dividing the total number of job postings in a state by the total number of AI-related job postings.

Experts suggest that while states like Texas, California and Florida “have a vast number of total job postings, the sheer volume of non-AI jobs dilutes their AI concentration ratio,” according to Unit4. “Moreover, many major tech firms headquartered in California are outsourcing AI roles to smaller, more affordable markets, creating a redistribution of AI employment opportunities.”

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