Houston universities rack up rankings in reports on top schools for entrepreneurship

5 years running

Rice University and the University of Houston share the accolades of recent entrepreneurship program rankings. Photo via Rice.edu

Rice University and the University of Houston have once again scooped up accolades for their entrepreneurship programs.

For the fifth consecutive year, Rice’s Jones Graduate School of Business has been ranked the No. 1 graduate entrepreneurship program by The Princeton Review, a provider of education services, and Entrepreneur magazine.

“Our close ties to Houston as well as national startup ecosystems give our students unique opportunities to pitch to and connect with angel investors, venture capitalists and corporations,” Brad Burke, managing director of the Rice Alliance, says in a news release. “These connections allow for mentorship, as well as launch points for new ideas, not only for our students but also for the city and surrounding communities.”

The list identifies 50 undergraduate and 50 graduate programs that boast the best entrepreneurship offerings based on factors such as coursework, experiential learning opportunities, and career outcomes. The ranking measures more than 40 data points about the schools’ entrepreneurship programs, faculties, students, and alumni.

Also for the fifth consecutive year, the University of Houston’s Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship in the C.T. Bauer College of Business has been named the No. 1 undergraduate entrepreneurship program by The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine.

“We believe in entrepreneurship, we believe in free enterprise, and we’re in the number one city for entrepreneurship,” Dave Cook, executive director of the Wolff Center, says in a news release.

“When we put students into this entrepreneurial mix,” he adds, “and we introduce and reinforce free enterprise values, our intent is to change students’ lives and to create the next generation of business leaders with the highest integrity who are going to go out and create their own cultures, their own companies and their own futures.”

The University of Texas at Austin is the only other school in the state to make the top 10 of either the graduate ranking or undergraduate ranking. UT captures the No. 6 spot on the graduate list and No. 2 spot on the undergraduate list.

Aside from The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur honor, Rice climbed four spots in Poets&Quants’ annual ranking of the world’s best MBA programs for entrepreneurship.

Last year, Rice’s graduate school for business landed at No. 7 on the list. This year, it rose to No. 3, behind the first-ranked Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis and second-ranked ESTM Berlin.

This is the fifth annual ranking of MBA programs for entrepreneurship from Poets&Quants, a website that focuses on graduate-level business education.

“MBA programs are increasingly sought after in today’s environment, and our focus on entrepreneurship sets us apart,” Peter Rodriguez, business dean at Rice, says in a news release. “The entrepreneurship classes emphasize a combination of mindset and skill set and focus on multiple stages of the entrepreneurial process, preparing our students for any industry and climate.”

Poets&Quants relies on 16 data points collected through an annual survey to come up with its ranking. Among those data points are:

  • Average percentage of MBA students launching businesses during their program or within three months of graduation between 2018 and 2022.
  • Percentage of MBA elective courses with all of the curriculum focused on entrepreneurship or innovation during the 2022-23 academic year.
  • Percentage of MBA students active in the business school’s main student-run entrepreneurship club during the 2022-23 academic year.
  • Square footage of incubator or accelerator space available to MBA students during the 2022-23 academic year.
According to a new report, Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business has all the ingredients or a top MBA program. Photo courtesy of Rice

Houston university's MBA program claims coveted top spot of annual ranking

top of class

Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business has raked in yet another top spot on an annual list of top MBA programs.

A new ranking from Poets & Quants, which covers news about business schools, puts Rice at No. 3 among the world's best MBA programs for entrepreneurship. That's up from No. 15 on last year's list.

The Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis grabbed the top spot in this year's ranking. Elsewhere in Texas, the University of Texas at Austin's McCombs School of Business lands at No. 14, the Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth at No. 35, and the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University in University Park at No. 36.

Poets & Quants judged the schools on 16 metrics related to their entrepreneurship initiatives.

Poets & Quants says Rice's Jones Graduate School of Business "itself is less than three decades old. But entrepreneurship was baked into its DNA from the get-go. The late Ed Williams and current professor Al Napier are credited with starting the entrepreneurial focus. But it wasn't until 2013 when Jones plucked Yael Hochberg from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management that the program really started to surge."

Rice's entrepreneurship offering combines academic courses and associated programs led by the Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Lilie) with programs offered by the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship.

"The ability to be a student while working on your startup in class, under the expert guidance of our world-class faculty, gives our Rice entrepreneurs a competitive advantage over any others out there," Hochberg, head of the Rice Entrepreneurship Initiative and academic director of the Rice Alliance, says in a news release.

The Rice Alliance's OwlSpark Accelerator supplements the MBA program. The accelerator serves as a capstone program and launchpad for students seeking to start their own businesses. Meanwhile, the Rice Business Plan Competition, the largest intercollegiate student startup competition in the world, lets students pitch their startups in front of more than 300 judges. And the Rice Alliance Technology Venture Forums allows students to showcase their startups to investors and corporations.

"The ability for students to launch their nascent startups, obtain mentoring from members of the Houston entrepreneurial ecosystem, and then pitch to hundreds of angel investors, venture capitalists, and corporations provides a unique opportunity that cannot be found on many campuses or in many regions," says Brad Burke, managing director of the Rice Alliance.

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Houston robotics co. unveils new robot that can handle extreme temperatures

Hot New Robot

Houston- and Boston-based Square Robot Inc.'s newest tank inspection robot is commercially available and certified to operate at extreme temperatures.

The new robot, known as the SR-3HT, can operate from 14°F to 131°F, representing a broader temperature range than previous models in the company's portfolio. According to the company, its previous temperature range reached 32°F to 104°F.

The new robot has received the NEC/CEC Class I Division 2 (C1D2) certification from FM Approvals, allowing it to operate safely in hazardous locations and to perform on-stream inspections of aboveground storage tanks containing products stored at elevated temperatures.

“Our engineering team developed the SR-3HT in response to significant client demand in both the U.S. and international markets. We frequently encounter higher temperatures due to both elevated process temperatures and high ambient temperatures, especially in the hotter regions of the world, such as the Middle East," David Lamont, CEO of Square Robot, said in a news release. "The SR-3HT employs both active and passive cooling technology, greatly expanding our operating envelope. A great job done (again) by our engineers delivering world-leading technology in record time.”

The company's SR-3 submersible robot and Side Launcher received certifications earlier this year. They became commercially available in 2023, after completing initial milestone testing in partnership with ExxonMobil, according to Square Robot.

The company closed a $13 million series B round in December, which it said it would put toward international expansion in Europe and the Middle East.

Square Robot launched its Houston office in 2019. Its autonomous, submersible robots are used for storage tank inspections and eliminate the need for humans to enter dangerous and toxic environments.

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This article originally appeared on EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

Houston's Ion District to expand with new research and tech space, The Arc

coming soon

Houston's Ion District is set to expand with the addition of a nearly 200,000-square-foot research and technology facility, The Arc at the Ion District.

Rice Real Estate Company and Lincoln Property Company are expected to break ground on the state-of-the-art facility in Q2 2026 with a completion target set for Q1 2028, according to a news release.

Rice University, the new facility's lead tenant, will occupy almost 30,000 square feet of office and lab space in The Arc, which will share a plaza with the Ion and is intended to "extend the district’s success as a hub for innovative ideas and collaboration." Rice research at The Arc will focus on energy, artificial intelligence, data science, robotics and computational engineering, according to the release.

“The Arc will offer Rice the opportunity to deepen its commitment to fostering world-changing innovation by bringing our leading minds and breakthrough discoveries into direct engagement with Houston’s thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem,” Rice President Reginald DesRoches said in the release. “Working side by side with industry experts and actual end users at the Ion District uniquely positions our faculty and students to form partnerships and collaborations that might not be possible elsewhere.”

Developers of the project are targeting LEED Gold certification by incorporating smart building automation and energy-saving features into The Arc's design. Tenants will have the opportunity to lease flexible floor plans ranging from 28,000 to 31,000 square feet with 15-foot-high ceilings. The property will also feature a gym, an amenity lounge, conference and meeting spaces, outdoor plazas, underground parking and on-site retail and dining.

Preleasing has begun for organizations interested in joining Rice in the building.

“The Arc at the Ion District will be more than a building—it will be a catalyst for the partnerships, innovations and discoveries that will define Houston’s future in science and technology,” Ken Jett, president of Rice Real Estate Company, added in the release. “By expanding our urban innovation ecosystem, The Arc will attract leading organizations and talent to Houston, further strengthening our city’s position as a hub for scientific and entrepreneurial progress.”

Intel Corp. and Rice University sign research access agreement

innovation access

Rice University’s Office of Technology Transfer has signed a subscription agreement with California-based Intel Corp., giving the global company access to Rice’s research portfolio and the opportunity to license select patented innovations.

“By partnering with Intel, we are creating opportunities for our research to make a tangible impact in the technology sector,” Patricia Stepp, assistant vice president for technology transfer, said in a news release.

Intel will pay Rice an annual subscription fee to secure the option to evaluate specified Rice-patented technologies, according to the agreement. If Intel chooses to exercise its option rights, it can obtain a license for each selected technology at a fee.

Rice has been a hub for innovation and technology with initiatives like the Rice Biotech Launch Pad, an accelerator focused on expediting the translation of the university’s health and medical technology; RBL LLC, a biotech venture studio in the Texas Medical Center’s Helix Park dedicated to commercializing lifesaving medical technologies from the Launch Pad; and Rice Nexus, an AI-focused "innovation factory" at the Ion.

The university has also inked partnerships with other tech giants in recent months. Rice's OpenStax, a provider of affordable instructional technologies and one of the world’s largest publishers of open educational resources, partnered with Microsoft this summer. Google Public Sector has also teamed up with Rice to launch the Rice AI Venture Accelerator, or RAVA.

“This agreement exemplifies Rice University’s dedication to fostering innovation and accelerating the commercialization of groundbreaking research,” Stepp added in the news release.

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