Trivie, which gamifies corporate training, has launched a new way for employees to connect with remote learning amid the pandemic. Photo via Trivie.com

How much of corporate training do employees actually remember? Texas-based Trivie, a training reinforcement app, sought to not only answer that question, but change the results entirely. Using adaptive learning and gamification, the Trivie app is reshaping online learning while the world adapts to remote working in a global pandemic.

According to Gallup Panel data, 62 percent of Americans currently say they have worked from home during the coronavirus pandemic. In a connected yet socially distanced environment, corporations are choosing to automate remote learning and disseminate critical COVID-19 guidelines with the help of Trivie.

One of Trivie's founders, Leland Putterman, who is based in Houston, first had the idea for a consumer-facing trivia game 18 years ago. When the app rolled out in 2013, it garnered more than three million downloads. Like anything in technology, App Store games were diversifying. Competing applications were deviating into in-app purchases — a move Putterman's app hadn't planned.

Rather than sink under the pressures of an unfit revenue model, the founders pivoted to a more fruitful investment in an untapped space: corporate training. After receiving multiple emails from users asking if developers had ever thought of using the app for company training, Putterman jumped into research on information retention and learned that trivia vastly benefits human memory.

With a new business plan and research backed by neuroscientists, the Trivie app launched in 2016. Reaching a broad list of organizations with five to over 40,000 users, Trivie has generated the praise and trust of business goliaths such as Subway, Unilever, and Anheuser-Busch. The app has been used to roll out onboarding, marketing training, safety protocols, sales information, remote learning and more.

"The vast majority of companies and organizations do nothing after a training event," he says, adding that, according to Trivie's own research, the app has found 50 to 75 percent of people had forgotten workplace education within a month. "It makes training one of the least effective business processes out there because everybody knows people don't remember their training unless it gets reinforced."

What if the secret to remembering is forgetting? Studies have shown that re-learning information over time strengthens memory recall.

"The way our solution works is very unique in that we want you to forget so you can re-remember again. The process of re-remembering is what pushes things into durable memory," explains Putterman.

When a company sets up a training on the Trivie app, the program serves each employee personalized training refreshers over time that are balanced with the retention levels of each unique learner. Using adaptive learning, the app prompts employees to remember previous facts until they master the subject.

"The AI [artificial intelligence] on the backend predicts when you're going to forget again, and it automates the whole thing," Putterman says.

In a Trivie control group, half of the test subjects used Trivie and half received basic employee training. Putterman stated the Trivie users typically have 95 percent retention after a month while non-Trivie users show less than 60 percent retention.

Employers can see the results of each Trivie assessment, pinpointed down to individual questions — a feature that is especially crucial for compliance and safety protocol. One of Trivie's university clients published a training on Title IX, where students passed yet 65 percent missed the question: "Whose responsibility is it to gain consent during a sexual encounter?"

When the university received the results, "they were able to see down to that level of detail—and that knowledge gap is pretty darn important," explains Putterman.

"Training is important but nowadays it's mission-critical," he says.

While Trivie already had many clients with needs for safety training, COVID-19 has brought new compliance guidelines to the forefront of every industry. Currently, Trivie has made the CDC's coronavirus guidelines available to all of its clients for no additional charge to be used across their entire employment bases.

Putterman acknowledges the pitfalls of sending out a corporate memo only to hear crickets.

"In a Trivie platform you would send a video, PDF, or word document via Trivie. You'd know people opened it up and after they're required to take a quiz so you know they understand what was in the message," Putterman explains.

An internal discussion board also allows company employees to discuss why the communication is essential to the organization. Another prominent feature of the app is a customizable survey.

"You know as well as I do that there's a ton of anxiety out there [about the coronavirus]. Wouldn't it be nice to push out a survey and then have a discussion around how people are dealing with it?" he questions.

With most of America's workforce working from home, Putterman expressed that it's common for employees to feel disconnected.

"The only way to maintain that company culture and close communication with confidence is to use something like Trivie," he says. "There's no feedback loop right now. The only way to bridge that gap is to have something like Trivie that's the glue."

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Houston femtech co. debuts new lactation and wellness pods

mom pod

Houston-based femtech company Work&, previously known as Work&Mother, has introduced new products in recent months aimed at supporting working mothers and the overall health of all employees.

The company's new Lactation Pod and Hybrid Pod serve as dual-use lactation and wellness spaces to meet employer demand, the company shared in a news release. The compact pods offer flexible design options that can serve permanent offices and nearly all commercial spaces.

They feature a fully compliant lactation station while also offering wellness functionalities that can support meditation, mental health, telehealth and prayer. In line with Work&'s other spaces, the pods utilize the Work& scheduling platform, which prioritizes lactation bookings to help employers comply with the PUMP Act.

“This isn’t about perks,” Jules Lairson, Work& co-founder and COO, said in the release. “It’s about meeting people where they are—with dignity and intentional design. That includes the mother returning to work, the employee managing anxiety, and everyone in between.”

According to the company, several Fortune 500 companies are already using the pods, and Work& has plans to grow the products' reach.

Earlier this year, Work& introduced its first employee wellness space at MetroNational’s Memorial City Plazas, representing Work&'s shift to offer an array of holistic health and wellness solutions for landlords and tenants.

The company, founded in 2017 by Lairson and CEO Abbey Donnell, was initially focused on outfitting commercial buildings with lactation accommodations for working parents. While Work& still offers these services through its Work&Mother branch, the addition of its Work&Wellbeing arm allowed the company to also address the broader wellness needs of all employees.

The company rebranded as Work& earlier this year.

Rice biotech studio secures investment from Modi Ventures, adds founder to board

fresh funding

RBL LLC, which supports commercialization for ventures formed at the Rice University Biotech Launch Pad, has secured an investment from Houston-based Modi Ventures.

Additionally, RBL announced that it has named Sahir Ali, founder and general partner of Modi Ventures, to its board of directors.

Modi Ventures invests in biotech companies that are working to advance diagnostics, engineered therapeutics and AI-driven drug discovery. The firm has $134 million under management after closing an oversubscribed round this summer.

RBL launched in 2024 and is based out of Houston’s Texas Medical Center Helix Park. William McKeon, president and CEO of the TMC, previously called the launch of RBL a “critical step forward” for Houston’s life sciences ecosystem.

“RBL is dedicated to building companies focused on pioneering and intelligent bioelectronic therapeutics,” Ali said in a LinkedIn post. “This partnership strengthens the Houston biotech ecosystem and accelerates the transition of groundbreaking lab discoveries into impactful therapies.”

Ali will join board members like managing partner Paul Wotton, Rice bioengineering professor Omid Veiseh, scientist and partner at KdT Ventures Rima Chakrabarti, Rice alum John Jaggers, CEO of Arbor Biotechnologies Devyn Smith, and veteran executive in the life sciences sector James Watson.

Ali has led transformative work and built companies across AI, cloud computing and precision medicine. Ali also serves on the board of directors of the Drug Information Association, which helps to collaborate in drug, device and diagnostics developments.

“This investment by Modi Ventures will be instrumental to RBL’s growth as it reinforces confidence in our venture creation model and accelerates our ability to develop successful biotech startups,” Wotton said in the announcement. "Sahir’s addition to the board will also amplify this collaboration with Modi. His strategic counsel and deep understanding of field-defining technologies will be invaluable as we continue to grow and deliver on our mission.”