A team of students from Rice University won Accenture’s 2023 Innovation Challenge with extended reality project. Photo via accenture.com

A team of students from Rice University may see their award-winning idea incorporated into programming from the nonprofit Smithsonian Institution — the world’s largest museum, education, and research complex.

Rice’s Team Night Owls, made up of four undergraduates, recently won Accenture’s 2023 Innovation Challenge. The team’s winning concept: a three-month, six-town mobile bus exhibit designed to expose the Smithsonian to residents of rural areas in the U.S. One of the highlights of the exhibit would be an augmented reality/virtual reality feature.

The Rice team competed against more than 1,100 applicants. Participants were asked to “envision ways to deliver the spirit and wonder of in-person visits” at the Smithsonian to rural communities nationwide.

“Our biggest takeaway from the challenge was learning how to generate innovative ideas and then combine the best aspects from each one to include into one coherent solution,” says one of the team members, Sean Bishop.

Accenture is providing pro bono support to the Smithsonian to help turn the Rice team’s “Rural Routes” concept into reality. Ideally, the Smithsonian hopes to incorporate the team’s idea into its 2026 celebration of the country’s 250th birthday.

Officials say they liked the Rice team’s proposal because it would be a way for the organization to familiarize rural America with the Smithsonian while also collecting and displaying the stories of rural residents.

“We hope to amplify the voices of rural Americans and raise the visibility of their cultural stories,” the Smithsonian says in a statement provided to InnovationMap.

Nico Motta, a rising junior studying business and data science at Rice, says his team’s idea was born out of a desire to bring the Smithsonian to people and bring people to the Smithsonian.

“From there, two different ideas emerged that we eventually brought together. First, we connected the idea of campaign buses that allow political candidates to travel to smaller communities,” Motta tells InnovationMap. “Second, we researched existing Smithsonian initiatives and were intrigued by the Crossroads program, a stationary exhibit shipped out to community centers.”

The team then brainstormed ways to marry the two ideas. The result: the Rural Routes project.

Aside from Motta and Bishop, members of the Rice team are Eva Moughan, a rising junior studying math and operations research at Rice, and Austin Tran, a rising junior studying business and statistics.

Bishop, a rising senior studying chemical and biomolecular engineering at Rice, says the Rural Routes entry stood out partly because the team:

  • Dug into how to finance the exhibit.
  • Supplied examples of similar projects that have achieved success.
  • Folded augmented reality/virtual reality into the project.

Organizers believe the Rice team’s winning entry embodies the competition’s goal this year to generate “bold ideas and innovative thinking” about introducing more Americans to the Smithsonian.

“The Accenture Innovation Challenge invites students seeking to do well and do good to collaborate on solving real and real-time business challenges for leading nonprofits. The students’ innovative ideas make the nonprofit better able to achieve its mission, and together we work to implement the winning solution,” says Marty Rodgers, senior managing director of Accenture’s U.S. south region and executive sponsor of the Accenture Innovation Challenge.

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Baylor, Rice win $500,000 to launch humanities-driven health AI center

ethical AI

Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University have been awarded a $500,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to create the Center for Humanities-based Health AI Innovation (CHHAIN).

The new center and three-year initiative aims to create ethically responsible and trustworthy AI for health care that uses history and patient narratives to shape the technology, according to a release. It represents a collaboration between the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor and the Medical Humanities Research Institute at Rice. Ultimately, the researchers aim to establish a national model for integrating the humanities into the design and implementation of health AI.

Vasiliki Rahimzadeh, assistant professor at Baylor in the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy, and Kirsten Ostherr, director of the Medical Humanities Research Institute at Rice, will serve as co-directors of the new center, which will be housed within the Center for Medical Ethics.

The team will also engage in strategic collaborations with Kirstin Matthews, Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and its fellow in science and technology policy, as well as Dr. Quianta Moore, executive director of the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute. An interdisciplinary team of medical humanities and bioethics scholars from Baylor, Rice, and partners in the Houston area will complete the group.

“CHHAIN represents a bold new model for integrating the humanities into health innovation,” Ostherr said in a news release. “It will create a collaborative space where humanities scholars, patients, developers and clinicians can come together to explore the human dimensions of health AI—trust, narrative and lived experience. These are essential perspectives that are too often missing from technology development, and CHHAIN is designed to change that."

CHHAIN’s work will revolve around three key points:

  • Defining trustworthy AI through patient voices
  • Translating humanities insights into clinical AI settings
  • Public engagement and policy translation

“For AI to truly improve health outcomes, it must be designed with patient trust and wellbeing at its core,” Rahimzadeh said in the news release. “CHHAIN will provide a dedicated space to explore critical bioethics questions, such as how we ensure AI respects patient autonomy, addresses the needs of underserved communities and integrates meaningfully into clinical care. Our goal is to translate these insights into real-world health settings where AI is already shaping patient experiences."

CHHAIN's research mission was also developed thanks to pilot funding from the Margaret M. and Albert B. Alkek Department of Medicine at Baylor and a grant from Rice's Provost's TMC Collaborator Fund.

Texas A&M, the University of North Texas and the University of Texas at El Paso were also home to some of the 97 projects that received a portion of the $34.79 million in fundning from the NEH. See the full list here.

Houston booms as No. 2 U.S. market for retail construction in 2025

Construction Zone

Get ready for a gigantic cartload of new shopping opportunities in Houston. A new report indicates the equivalent of 21 Walmart supercenters is under construction in the region.

The report, published by commercial real estate services provider Lee & Associates, says Houston has nearly 3.9 million square feet of retail space under construction, making it the second most active market for new retail space in the U.S.

To put that in perspective, given the average Walmart supercenter measures 182,000 square feet, the 3.9 million-square-foot total would work out to 21 new supercenters being built in the region.

Dallas-Fort Worth is by far the most active U.S. market for new retail space; DFW leads more than 60 U.S. retail markets with nearly 7.15 million square feet of space under construction. The amount of retail space going up in DFW represents 15 percent of all retail space under construction in the more than 60 U.S. markets tracked by Lee & Associates.

Houston and Austin aren’t too far behind Dallas-Fort Worth, though.

Third-ranked Austin area has more than 3.4 million square feet of retail space being built.

What’s behind the surge in retail construction across Texas? Population growth.

Data recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau shows Houston was the second-fastest-growing metro from 2023 to 2024. DFW was the country’s third-fastest-growing metro from 2023 to 2024, based on the number of new residents, and Austin landed at No. 13.

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

Intuitive Machines to acquire NASA-certified deep space navigation company

space deal

Houston-based space technology, infrastructure and services company Intuitive Machines has agreed to buy Tempe, Arizona-based aerospace company KinetX for an undisclosed amount.

The deal is expected to close by the end of this year, according to a release from the company.

KinetX specializes in deep space navigation, systems engineering, ground software and constellation mission design. It’s the only company certified by NASA for deep space navigation. KinetX’s navigation software has supported both of Intuitive Machines’ lunar missions.

Intuitive Machines says the acquisition marks its entry into the precision navigation and flight dynamics segment of deep space operations.

“We know our objective, becoming an indispensable infrastructure services layer for space exploration, and achieving it requires intelligent systems and exceptional talent,” Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus said in the release. “Bringing KinetX in-house gives us both: flight-proven deep space navigation expertise and the proprietary software behind some of the most ambitious missions in the solar system.”

KinetX has supported deep space missions for more than 30 years, CEO Christopher Bryan said.

“Joining Intuitive Machines gives our team a broader operational canvas and shared commitment to precision, autonomy, and engineering excellence,” Bryan said in the release. “We’re excited to help shape the next generation of space infrastructure with a partner that understands the demands of real flight, and values the people and tools required to meet them.”

Intuitive Machines has been making headlines in recent weeks. The company announced July 30 that it had secured a $9.8 million Phase Two government contract for its orbital transfer vehicle. Also last month, the City of Houston agreed to add three acres of commercial space for Intuitive Machines at the Houston Spaceport at Ellington Airport. Read more here.