The new service rolling out in Houston is part Uber for kids, part carpool. Photo courtesy of HopSkipDrive

Living in Houston is great, but it does present some challenges — especially for busy families. Imagine this scenario: it's Tuesday morning, Mom has an early office meeting, Dad has to fly out of IAH on business, and three kids have to be transported to two different schools ... and it all has to happen before 8 am.

That scene probably plays closer to reality for many Bayou City parents. Add into it the regular crush of our city's congestion and it's enough for anyone to lose their mind.

Enter HopSkipDrive. Part Uber, part carpool the service just launched in Houston, billing itself as a safe an innovative transportation solution for both families and schools. It's already working with more than 170 schools and districts nationwide in cities in Arizona, California, Colorado, and Virginia, as well as Washington, D.C.

The company provides transit solutions for students of all levels and abilities who may have different schedules from day-to-day, as well as youth in foster care and families whose school choice placements don't fit neatly into a bus routing plan.

The system works similarly to other ride shares. Parents download the HopSkipDrive app or use the company's website to request rides for children who are at least six years old. Parents can customize ride instructions with notes about carpool line, pickup and drop-off procedures, and other details. Before the ride, parents receive a photo profile of their CareDriver, which they can share with their child and their school. During the ride, parents receive progress alerts at each step.

If all that has alarm bells going off in parents' and educators' heads, HopSkipDrive understands, and the company assures them it has a rigorous screening procedure for its drivers. Every CareDriver has at least five years of care-giving experience and has passed a 15-point certification process.

This certification is a stringent vetting process, including fingerprinting, background checks using FBI and Department of Justice database searches, driving record checks, and in-person meetings. Drivers must own or lease a four-door vehicle that is not more than 10 years old that can seat between four and seven passengers, and must pass a yearly 19-point inspection.

In addition, parents can get live text notifications during their child's ride, HopSkipDrive's Safe Ride Support (SRS) is the only U.S.-based team in the industry that monitors every ride in real time. Staffed with former 911 operators, EMTs, childcare specialists, and parents, SRS ensures every rider is delivered safely to their destination.

"As a working mother of two, I understand how challenging it is to balance your children's ever-changing daily schedules with workplace demands," says Joanna McFarland, the company's founder and CEO in a press release that announced the company's Houston launch. "Parents shouldn't have to choose between their careers and their children's education and activities, but that tough choice is very real for countless families. HopSkipDrive wants parents to take comfort in knowing they have a caregiver to rely on to get their kids where they need to go, safely and without worry. We're thrilled to arrive in the Greater Houston Area to answer the transportation needs of many students, families and schools."

And individual schools or school districts can also partner with the ride share service for their student transportation needs.

"HopSkipDrive is not only 60 percent less expensive than our previous car service solution, but far more reliable," says Mike Hush, director of transportation with Littleton Public Schools in Colorado. "We had worked with HopSkipDrive for only a few weeks before we quadrupled the number of students riding with CareDrivers."

The company touts itself as both an asset and a success in cities around the country. With its working-mom founding team, heightened approach to safety, and real-time technology approach, HopSkipDrive could provide a valuable service for Houston's busy working families.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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Rice University MBA programs rank among top 5 in prestigious annual report

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Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business MBA programs have been ranked among the top five in the country again in The Princeton Review’s 2025 Best Business Schools rankings.

The university's MBA program in finance earned a No. 3 ranking, climbing up two spots from its 2024 ranking. Finance MBA programs at the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business and New York University's Leonard N. Stern School of Business were the only ones to outrank Rice, claiming No. 2 and No. 1 spots, respectively.

Rice's online MBA program was ranked No. 5, compared to No. 4 last year. Indiana University's Bloomington Kelley School of Business' online program claimed the top spot.

“These rankings reflect the commitment of our faculty and staff, the drive and talent of our students and the strong support of our alumni and partners,” Peter Rodriguez, dean of Rice Business, said in a news release. “They are exceptional honors but also reminders — not just of our top-tier programs and world-class faculty and students but of our broader impact on the future of business education.”

Rice also ranked at No. 6 for “greatest resources for minority students."

The Princeton Review’s 2025 business school rankings are based on data from surveys of administrators at 244 business schools as well as surveys of 22,800 students enrolled in the schools’ MBA programs during the previous three academic years.

"The schools that made our lists for 2025 share four characteristics that inform our criteria for designating them as 'best': excellent academics, robust experiential learning components, outstanding career services, and positive feedback about them from enrolled students we surveyed," Rob Franek, The Princeton Review's editor-in-chief, said in a press release. "No b-school is best overall or best for all students, but to all students considering earning an MBA, we highly recommend these b-schools and salute them for their impressive programs."

Rice's finance program has ranked in the top 10 for eight consecutive years, and its online MBA has ranked in the top five for four years.

Rice and the University of Houston also claimed top marks on the Princeton Review's entrepreneurship rankings. Rice ranks as No. 1 on the Top 50 Entrepreneurship: Grad list, and the University of Houston ranked No. 1 on Top 50 Entrepreneurship: Ugrad. Read more here.

Houston named ‘star’ metro for artificial intelligence in new report

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A new report declares Houston one of the country’s 28 “star” hubs for artificial intelligence.

The Houston metro area appears at No. 16 in the Brookings Institution’s ranking of metros that are AI “stars.” The metro areas earned star status based on data from three AI buckets: talent, innovation and adoption. Only two places, the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley, made Brookings’ “superstar” list.

According to Brookings, the Houston area had 11,369 job postings in 2024 that sought candidates with AI skills, 210 AI startups (based on Crunchbase data from 2014 to 2024), and 113 venture capital deals for AI startups (based on PitchBook data from 2023 to 2024).

A number of developments are boosting Houston’s AI profile, such as:

Brookings also named Texas’s three other major metros as AI stars:

  • No. 11 Austin
  • No. 13 Dallas-Fort Worth
  • No. 40 San Antonio

Brookings said star metros like Houston “are bridging the gap” between the two superstar regions and the rest of the country. In 2025, the 28 star metros made up 46 percent of the country’s metro-area employment but 54 percent of AI job postings. Across the 28 metros, the number of AI job postings soared 139 percent between 2018 and 2025, according to Brookings.

Around the country, dozens of metros fell into three other categories on Brookings’ AI list: “emerging centers” (14 metros), “focused movers” (29 metros) and “nascent adopters” (79 metros).