Lawrence Schwartz — CEO of Trivie, a tech-enabled workforce training solution — shares how employees forgetting training is one of the biggest challenges for businesses. Photo via Getty Images

Forgetting is the hobgoblin of businesses everywhere. Globally, more than $300 billion is spent annually by companies hoping to train their employees to do their jobs successfully and safely. Yet, learning professionals know that people will forget 80 percent or more of what they learned after 30 to 90 days unless it's reinforced.

It's a human biology problem — people forget. However, if that were the only issue, it would have been solved long ago. Instead, it's a holistic issue that includes how people learn and forget, how people engage with training, and how knowledge gaps are identified and addressed across entire organizations.

How do we get people to remember what we need them to know to do their job more effectively? And how do we do it without it taking up so much of their time that training becomes impossibly expensive?

Therein lies the problem. Neuroscientists have done extensive research on how the brain remembers things long-term, and it's not what most people think.

We've grown up in a culture of cramming. Review the content over and over right before a test, take the test, pass it, and you're done. Check the box. Unfortunately, your brain is done with that material too, and over time, it will purge itself of that information unless you do something about it.

The act of forgetting allows our brains to strengthen their neurological pathways to help us remember. This is called "retrieval practice" and according to Dr. Henry Roediger, one of the authors of the book, Make It Stick: "Retrieval practice via quizzes spaced out over time helps to consolidate knowledge and keep it on employees' 'mental fingertips,' so it is easy to access when needed." In essence, you re-introduce something learned so that the brain "recalls" it, and if done enough over a certain period, it is more likely that people will remember this information longer.

With today's technology, we can automate spaced repetition. Artificial intelligence can predict when people will forget and proactively nudge employees to avoid creating knowledge gaps across organizations. Delivering information in a personalized way, such that every learner has their own proficiency map, enables knowledge retention with very little time expenditure.

It's human nature that when someone knows more, they are more confident in their abilities. This translates to better performance across nearly all use cases within a business. Top salespeople know their product like the back of their hands to identify solutions for customers quickly. The best customer service teams don't just reference knowledge bases; they are familiar with the product, processes, or services that allow them to be responsive and think holistically about issues. The safest work environments are a product of employees knowing what they need to do to keep themselves, and each other, safe. Knowledge retention powers high-performing people and organizations.

Forgetting can never be eliminated. Rather, businesses that leverage forgetting as opportunities to strengthen their people's knowledge will create a culture of continuous learning. Employees will feel more empowered and confident. Knowledge silos will be broken down, and the analog ways that knowledge was retained across peer interactions will become digital. An open network of knowledge will emerge and supplement our brains, making what was once a weakness in human biology, forgetting, an opportunity to remember.

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Lawrence Schwartz is the co-founder and CEO of Texas-based Trivie.

Trivie has closed a $5 million investment round led by Houston-based Cottonwood Venture Partners. Photo via Trivie.com

Houston investment firm leads Texas startup's $5M series A round

money moves

A Texas-based tech startup that has created an artificial intelligence-enabled tool that gamifies corporate training and education has closed its most recent funding round thanks to a Houston investor.

Trivie as announced its $5 million series A investment round led by Houston-based Cottonwood Venture Partners, an investment firm that has a portfolio of technology companies that are providing digital solutions within the energy industry. Trivie will use the new funds to scale its product and expand across industries, from energy and manufacturing to hospitality, healthcare, consumer goods, and more.

"The Trivie team's success to date has been remarkable and we are humbled to partner with them to expand Trivie's reach as organizations increasingly look to maximize knowledge retention, particularly as it relates to health and safety," says Jeremy Arendt, managing partner of CVP, in a news release.

Now, as more employees are working from home than ever before, relevant training is crucial and at the top of mind for business leaders. Trivie's clients include Subway, Phillips66, Anheuser-Busch, to name a few.

"At Trivie, our mission is to ensure that every employee at every organization can be at their very best because what they have been taught, they remember, and what they have said is understood," says Lawrence Schwartz, CEO, and co-founder at Trivie, in a news release. "We are extremely excited to partner with Cottonwood Venture Partners to help us expand our footprint in the Fortune 1000 and to continue to execute on that mission."

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. As COVID-19 has brought new compliance guidelines to the forefront of every industry, Trivie was quick to make the CDC's coronavirus guidelines available to all of its clients for no additional charge to be used across their entire employment bases.

Additionally, Trivie prioritizing its user's ability to connect in a time of social distancing and working from home.

"The only way to maintain that company culture and close communication with confidence is to use something like Trivie," Putterman previously tells InnovationMap. "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 lab develops AI tool to improve neurodevelopmental diagnoses

developing news

One of the hardest parts of any medical condition is waiting for answers. Speeding up an accurate diagnosis can be a doctor’s greatest mercy to a family. A team at Baylor College of Medicine has created technology that may do exactly that.

Led by Dr. Ryan S. Dhindsa, assistant professor of pathology and immunology at Baylor and principal investigator at the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital, the scientists have developed an artificial intelligence-based approach that will help doctors to identify genes tied to neurodevelopmental disorders. Their research was recently published the American Journal of Human Genetics.

According to its website, Dhindsa Lab uses “human genomics, human stem cell models, and computational biology to advance precision medicine.” The diagnoses that stem from the new computational tool could include specific types of autism spectrum disorder, epilepsy and developmental delay, disorders that often don’t come with a genetic diagnosis.

“Although researchers have made major strides identifying different genes associated with neurodevelopmental disorders, many patients with these conditions still do not receive a genetic diagnosis, indicating that there are many more genes waiting to be discovered,” Dhindsa said in a news release.

Typically, scientists must sequence the genes of many people with a diagnosis, as well as people not affected by the disorder, to find new genes associated with a particular disease or disorder. That takes time, money, and a little bit of luck. AI minimizes the need for all three, explains Dhindsa: “We used AI to find patterns among genes already linked to neurodevelopmental diseases and predict additional genes that might also be involved in these disorders.”

The models, made using patterns expressed at the single-cell level, are augmented with north of 300 additional biological features, including data on how intolerant genes are to mutations, whether they interact with other known disease-associated genes, and their functional roles in different biological pathways.

Dhindsa says that these models have exceptionally high predictive value.

“Top-ranked genes were up to two-fold or six-fold, depending on the mode of inheritance, more enriched for high-confidence neurodevelopmental disorder risk genes compared to genic intolerance metrics alone,” he said in the release. “Additionally, some top-ranking genes were 45 to 500 times more likely to be supported by the literature than lower-ranking genes.”

That means that the models may actually validate genes that haven’t yet been proven to be involved in neurodevelopmental conditions. Gene discovery done with the help of AI could possibly become the new normal for families seeking answers beyond umbrella terms like “autism spectrum disorder.”

“We hope that our models will accelerate gene discovery and patient diagnoses, and future studies will assess this possibility,” Dhindsa added.

Texas robotics co. begins new search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370

International News

Malaysia’s government has given final approval for a Texas-based marine robotics company to renew the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean more than a decade ago.

Cabinet ministers agreed to terms and conditions for a “no-find, no-fee” contract with Texas-based Ocean Infinity to resume the seabed search operation at a new 5,800-square-mile site in the ocean, Transport Minister Anthony Loke said in a statement Wednesday. Ocean Infinity will be paid $70 million only if wreckage is discovered.

The Boeing 777 plane vanished from radar shortly after taking off on March 8, 2014, carrying 239 people, mostly Chinese nationals, on a flight from Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, to Beijing. Satellite data showed the plane turned from its flight path and headed south to the far-southern Indian Ocean, where it is believed to have crashed.

An expensive multinational search failed to turn up any clues to its location, although debris washed ashore on the east African coast and Indian Ocean islands. A private search in 2018 by Ocean Infinity also found nothing.

The final approval for a new search came three months after Malaysia gave the nod in principle to plans for a fresh search.

Ocean Infinity CEO Oliver Punkett earlier this year reportedly said the company had improved its technology since 2018. He has said the firm is working with many experts to analyze data and had narrowed the search area to the most likely site.

Loke said his ministry will ink a contract with Ocean Infinity soon but didn’t provide details on the terms. The firm has reportedly sent a search vessel to the site and indicated that January-April is the best period for the search.

“The government is committed to continuing the search operation and providing closure for the families of the passengers of flight MH370,” he said in a statement.

Harris County booms with 3rd biggest population in U.S.

Boomtown

Newly released U.S. Census Bureau data has revealed Harris County became the third most populous county nationwide in 2024, and it had the highest year-over-year growth rate from 2023.

The new population report, published this month, estimated year-over-year population data from 2023 to 2024 across all 3,144 U.S. counties, and 387 metro areas.

Harris County's numeric growth rate outpaced all other U.S. counties from July 1, 2023 to July 1, 2024, the report found. The Census Bureau estimated Harris County's population grew by 105,852 people year-over-year, bringing the total population to 5,009,302 residents. That's around a 2.16 percent growth rate.

Los Angeles County, California (No. 1) and Illinois' Cook County (No. 2) are the only two U.S. counties that have larger populations than Harris County. Los Angeles County now boasts a population of nearly 9.76 million, while Cook County's has increased to more than 5.18 million people.

The top 10 most populous counties in the U.S. are:

  • No. 1 – Los Angles County, California
  • No. 2 – Cook County, Illinois
  • No. 3 – Harris County, Texas
  • No. 4 – Maricopa County, Arizona
  • No. 5 – San Diego County, California
  • No. 6 – Orange County, California
  • No. 7 – Miami-Dade County, Florida
  • No. 8 – Dallas County, Texas
  • No. 9 – Kings County, New York
  • No. 10 – Riverside County, California

Montgomery County also ranked among the top 10 U.S. counties with the highest numeric growth, ranking 9th nationally after gaining 34,268 residents from 2023 to 2024. Montgomery County's population has now grown to 749,613 people.

In the report's national comparison of counties with the largest population growth by percentage, Montgomery County ranked No. 7 with a year-over-year growth rate of 4.8 percent.

Most populated U.S. metro areas

The U.S. Census Bureau additionally found Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands nearly led the nation as the second-fastest growing metro area in 2024.

From July 2023 to July 2024, the Houston metro added 198,171 residents to bring the total population to 7,796,182.

New York-Newark-Jersey City was the only metro area to outpace Houston's growth during the one-year period. The New York-New Jersey metro added 213,403 new residents, which brought the total population to over 19.94 million last year.

Kristie Wilder, a Census Bureau Population Division demographer, said in the report that the nation's population growth in its major metros was largely impacted by international migration rather than changes in birth rates.

"While births continue to contribute to overall growth, rising net international migration is offsetting the ongoing net domestic outmigration we see in many of these areas," Wilder said.

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington was right behind Houston as the third-fastest growing U.S. metro in 2024. The Metroplex gained 177,922 residents last year, and now has a total population of more than 8.34 million.

The top 10 U.S. metros with the highest numeric growth from 2023 to 2024 are:

  • No. 1 – New York-Newark-Jersey City, New York-New Jersey
  • No. 2 – Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, Texas
  • No. 3 – Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas
  • No. 4 – Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, Florida
  • No. 5 – Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Virginia-Maryland-West Virginia
  • No. 6 – Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, Arizona
  • No. 7 – Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, Florida
  • No. 8 – Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, Georgia
  • No. 9 – Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, Illinois-Indiana
  • No. 10 – Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Washington
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This article originally appeared on our sister site, CultureMap.com.