Check out these conferences, shopping events, networking, and more. Getty Images

Before most of Houston completely checks out for the holidays, the city is playing host to a few major innovation-focused events. Learn from thought leaders, network, and even shop at these five events taking place this week and next.

Applied AI Summit Houston

Technology events organizer Re-Work is bringing a conference focused on all things artificial intelligence — and how it can affect your business. The conference takes place Thursday, November 29, to Friday, November 30, at the JW Marriott Houston Downtown and expects 60 speakers and over 450 attendees.

The event is co-located with Re-Work's other two-day conference focused on machine learning.

Learn more here.

Machine Learning for DevOps Summit Houston

Next door from the AI summit at the JW Marriott Houston Downtown will be another future-forward summit focused on machine learning for development operations. The two events share locations, and both have full-day schedules from Thursday, November 29, to Friday, November 30.

Learn how automation is going to affect the industry or your company and mingle with leaders of the industry.

Learn more here.

HX Capital Summit

Houston Exponential is hosting a full-day summit on Tuesday, December 4, at the Texas Medical Center's Innovation Institute in an attempt to bring more funding for startups in Houston.

"The HX Capital Summit is a forum to convene investors, entrepreneurs and other ecosystem stakeholders on a critical topic — attracting capital to fund high growth, high impact companies in Houston," says Gina Luna, board chair of Houston Exponential, on the event website. "This event is an opportunity to celebrate positive momentum and to continue to work on addressing our gaps in funding startups, so that Houston can benefit from the tremendous economic impact of their growth and eventual exits."

Learn more here.

The Greater Houston Partnership's Annual Houston Region Economic Outlook

On Wednesday, December 5, the Greater Houston Partnership is hosting a slew of industry experts at the Royal Sonesta Houston to discuss what to expect in 2019. The GHP's senior vice president of research, Patrick Jankowski, will be delivering the 2019 employment forecast for the Houston area for 2019.

The event consists of a panel, luncheon, and business expo. Registration and networking begins at 9:30 am, and the event concludes with a business expo from 1:30 to 2 pm.

Learn more here.

NextSeed's Night Market

In honor of the holidays, NextSeed is hosting its annual Night Market on Thursday, December 6, at 3 Greenway Plaza on the sixth floor. The event begins at 6:30 pm with a cocktail hour, followed by food, drinks, shopping, and mingling.

NextSeed is all about connecting startups and small businesses to their communities, so, in the same vein, the Night Market will be populated by small businesses — some are even NextSeed clients. Read more about NextSeed here.

Learn more here.

Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Houston university to launch artificial intelligence major, one of first in nation

BS in AI

Rice University announced this month that it plans to introduce a Bachelor of Science in AI in the fall 2025 semester.

The new degree program will be part of the university's department of computer science in the George R. Brown School of Engineering and Computing and is one of only a few like it in the country. It aims to focus on "responsible and interdisciplinary approaches to AI," according to a news release from the university.

“We are in a moment of rapid transformation driven by AI, and Rice is committed to preparing students not just to participate in that future but to shape it responsibly,” Amy Dittmar, the Howard R. Hughes Provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, said in the release. “This new major builds on our strengths in computing and education and is a vital part of our broader vision to lead in ethical AI and deliver real-world solutions across health, sustainability and resilient communities.”

John Greiner, an assistant teaching professor of computer science in Rice's online Master of Computer Science program, will serve as the new program's director. Vicente Ordóñez-Román, an associate professor of computer science, was also instrumental in developing and approving the new major.

Until now, Rice students could study AI through elective courses and an advanced degree. The new bachelor's degree program opens up deeper learning opportunities to undergrads by blending traditional engineering and math requirements with other courses on ethics and philosophy as they relate to AI.

“With the major, we’re really setting out a curriculum that makes sense as a whole,” Greiner said in the release. “We are not simply taking a collection of courses that have been created already and putting a new wrapper around them. We’re actually creating a brand new curriculum. Most of the required courses are brand new courses designed for this major.”

Students in the program will also benefit from resources through Rice’s growing AI ecosystem, like the Ken Kennedy Institute, which focuses on AI solutions and ethical AI. The university also opened its new AI-focused "innovation factory," Rice Nexus, earlier this year.

“We have been building expertise in artificial intelligence,” Ordóñez-Román added in the release. “There are people working here on natural language processing, information retrieval systems for machine learning, more theoretical machine learning, quantum machine learning. We have a lot of expertise in these areas, and I think we’re trying to leverage that strength we’re building.”

Houston biomanufacturing accelerator adds pilot plant to support scale-ups

new digs

Houston accelerator BioWell announced this month that it has taken over operations of Texas BioTechnology’s pilot plant in Richmond, Texas.

The 33,000-square-foot facility is one of the largest of its kind in the U.S. and features molecular biology labs, advanced automation, fermentation equipment and 16 dedicated benches for early-stage industrial biomanufacturing companies, according to a release from the company. It will allow BioWell to offer on-site education, workforce development, and lab training for students and workers.

BioWell and its founding company, First Bight Ventures, report that the facility should help address the industry's "scale-up bottleneck due to limited pilot- and demonstration-scale infrastructure" in the U.S.

"As a Houston-based accelerator dedicated exclusively to early-stage biomanufacturing startups, partnering with this facility was a natural and highly strategic decision for us. The site is fully operational and offers a strong platform to support biomanufacturing companies, industry leaders, and research institutions, providing critical expertise and infrastructure across a broad range of biotechnology production processes,” Veronica Breckenridge, founder of First Bight Ventures and BioWell, said in a news release.

First Bight Ventures shares that the partnership with the facility will also allow it to better support its portfolio companies and make them more attractive to future investors.

BioWell will host an open house and tours of the fermentation and lab spaces and an overview of current bioindustrial projects Wednesday, May 28, at 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. RSVPs are required.

BioWell was originally funded by a $700,000 U.S. Economic Development Administration’s Build to Scale grant and launched as a virtual accelerator for bioindustrial startups. Listen to an interview with Carlos Estrada, head of venture acceleration at BioWell, here.