Houston needs to expand support to upskill the future tech workforce, according to expert

guest column

There is a clear need to upskill Houston-area young adults in IT fields, but few programs in Houston have the experience to tackle this issue. Photo courtesy of Genesys Works

Since the start of the pandemic, Texas has emerged as a national leader in job creation. According to a new report from the Pew Research Center, a boom in tech, finance, and professional service employment has helped the state spur 563,000 new jobs since February 2020.

Yet companies across Houston continue to face challenges in identifying and retaining diverse talent to fill their high-growth, high-demand IT positions. Houston IT jobs are projected to increase by 18 percent over the next five years, according to the Gulf Coast Workforce Board, while at the same time, the talent gap in area high school graduates widens.

The lack of diversity in the IT sector has long been acknowledged as an industry-wide challenge. Black and Latinx workers comprise 30 percent of the U.S. labor force but only 16 percent of computing and mathematical occupations, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The systematic barriers that prevent diversity in the IT field are vast, and companies often struggle to implement successful inclusion and diversity programs. A report by Capgemini revealed that 85 percent of leadership executives believe their organizations provide equitable opportunities for career development and advancement for all employees, only 18 percent of women and minitories agree.

There is a clear need to upskill Houston-area young adults in IT fields, but few programs in Houston have the experience to tackle this issue.

One local nonprofit is dedicated to addressing this evolving workforce. Genesys Works Houston was created to bridge the gap between companies and motivated, underserved youth 20 years ago. The founders had a simple goal: to create a program that could guide motivated youth into the corporate world where they could get opportunities for meaningful employment. Now, two decades later, the organization has expanded additional chapters across the nation, and serves about 2,500 students each year with internship programs that provide coaching and counseling to high school seniors to find career pathways while helping employers fill critical talent gaps.

The program offers mentorship and coaching during the first six to nine months of employment. Additionally, thanks to a partnership with Workforce Solutions, the program also offers linkages to wraparound services — transportation, basic needs, childcare, etc. — all at no cost to trainees.

The numbers don’t lie — Houston needs to dedicate resources to upskilling its future IT workforce, and supporting organizations like Genesys Works and others can help to bridge that gap.

------

Lis Harper is a strategist and account executive at Houston-based Medley Inc.

Investing in your entry-level employees from the beginning will only continue to positively impact their future, and the ripple effect for businesses. Photo via Getty Images

Upskilling entry-level employees should be your priority, says Houston expert

guest column

With Spring Break behind us, many soon-to-be grads will be anxiously applying for their first entry-level jobs or internships; however nearly 50 percent of college graduates don’t feel qualified for entry-level positions and 20 percent feel like they lack basic skills to compete in the job market. It’s important for young professionals to have a solid foundation before the first day on the job, yet 40 percent of graduates say they only occasionally or rarely use skills they learned in college. This is scary for young professionals, and even more terrifying for businesses that are hiring entry-level employers.

Closing young professionals’ education-to-employment skills gap is crucial to the future of work, and how we go about surviving The Great Resignation. Businesses do not have the time, resources or money to teach every entry-level employee basic workforce skills, such as email etiquette and calendar management. According to Indeed, the average time employers spend training entry-level hires is around 33 hours per new employee, but shouldn’t some of the training be the universities’ jobs?

Maybe. However, over the past two years, colleges have been forced to redirect their focus to take care of students' mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic—understandable as between 80 to 90 percent of college students have experienced some mental health strains during the pandemic.

Each year, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) puts out a survey that assesses what should be taught in both internship-preparedness and career-readiness programs, to fill the gaps and upskill young professionals with the lessons they need to be learning. These core competencies were incorporated into Ampersand’s training, where young professionals are upskilled in a wide array of transferrable workforce skills that allow immediate success in new workplaces. Our 50-plus hours of curriculum was developed around NACE’s expertise, feedback from hundreds of businesses we spoke to,and my own personal frustrations of running a business for 12 years, which caused me to realize what opportunities and skills I wanted to bring to the new generation of professionals. Ampersand’s curriculum focuses on a variety of fundamental skills, such as: business structure fundamentals, interpersonal conflict resolution, combatting biases in the workplace, proactive communication, handling mental health issues and the art of constructive feedback.

One of the most appreciated courses in the Ampersand curriculum is the lesson on growth and grit mentality. According to psychology professor Angela Duckworth, the blend of passion and perseverance, aka “grit,” forecasts positive long-term success throughout someone’s life. Investing in these young professionals will not only set them up for larger success, but it will also give an equal and foundational opportunity to these youths as they begin developing their skills and growth mentalities. Mastering both basic workforce skills and goal setting allows young professionals to help them decide whether or not a job position is the right fit for them. Additionally, it will also help young professionals set up and successfully navigate five- or 10-year plans to use as bars of measurement in their future work endeavors.

In recognizing the education-to-employment skills gap and the need for excellent career-readiness training, The City of Houston’s Hire Houston Youth program has partnered with Ampersand to upskill thousands of young professionals applying for its summer jobs. Ampersand has created an exclusive curriculum for the Hire Houston Youth program that includes 35 lessons, five modules and four hours of asynchronous career-readiness content. These modules include topics such as professional development, employee rights and basic skill building. As a part of its partnership with Ampersand, Hire Houston Youth is making it mandatory for the young adults applying for a job to go through Ampersand’s platform in order to be eligible for an interview. With the partnership between Ampersand and Hire Houston Youth, the next generation of Houstonians will have a sharp set of career-readiness skills and be able to hit the ground running in any future job.

By recognizing and focusing on these necessary skills early on, while also providing a space for these young professionals to learn and grow, the new generation will have more opportunities and doors open up for them as they begin their careers. Investing in them from the beginning will only continue to positively impact their future, and the ripple effect for businesses.

------

Allie Danziger is the co-founder and CEO of Houston-based Ampersand Professionals.

Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

6 Houston entrepreneurs land on coveted Inc. Female Founders 500 list

the future is female

Six Houston female entrepreneurs and innovators were named to the 2026 Female Founders 500 list.

The annual list compiled by Inc. Magazine recognizes female founders based in the U.S. who have built businesses that have moved their industries forward. The group collectively generated approximately $12.3 billion in 2025 revenue and $12.2 billion in funding to date, according to Inc. Five Houstonians were named to the list last year.

"Each year, we are increasingly amazed by the extraordinary leaders on our Inc. Female Founders 500 list," Bonny Ghosh, editorial director at Inc., said in a news release. "The honorees on this year's list include innovators in AI, beauty and wellness trendsetters winning devoted fans, and nonprofit leaders making a real impact in their communities. Together, they're showing all of us what trailblazing female leadership looks like."

The Houston founders are:

  • Sassie Duggleby, CEO and co-founder of Houston space tech and engine company Venus Aerospace. Duggleby also serves on the Texas Space Commission board of directors.
  • Stephanie Murphy, CEO and executive chairman of Aegis Aerospace, which provides space services, spaceflight product development, and engineering services. Murphy also serves as chair of the Texas Aerospace Research and Space Economy Consortium Executive Committee.
  • Laureen Meroueh, CEO and founder of Hertha Metals, which has developed a cost-effective and energy-efficient process that converts low-grade iron ore of any format directly into molten steel or high-purity iron in a single step.
  • LaToshia Norwood, managing partner of L'Renee & Associates (LRA), a full-service project management consulting firm.
  • Lauren Rottet, president and founding principal of Rottet Studio, an international architecture and design firm focused on corporate, lifestyle and hospitality projects
  • Nina Magon, founder and CEO of Nina Magon Studio / Nina Magon Consumer Products, a residential and commercial interior design company. She also co-founded KA Residences earlier this year.

"Grateful to be recognized again on the Inc. Female Founders 500," Duggleby said in a LinkedIn post. "The best part of building Venus Aerospace has been working with an incredible team pushing the boundaries of flight—and helping bring more women into aerospace along the way.

Meroueh, whose company emerged from stealth last year, voiced a similar push for bringing more women into the fold.

"We've seen a 7x jump in female-led IPOs over the last decade, from just two in 2014 (less than 1% of all IPOs) to 14 in 2024 (nearly 9% of all IPOs). Progress is happening," Meroueh shared in a LinkedIn post. "Yet, less than 1% of venture funding in hard tech goes to female-founded companies. But as my friend Ana Kraft says, the right man for the job may be a woman."

Twenty-nine Texas female founders made this list, including Amber Venz Box, founder of the Dallas-based LTK shopping platform, and Cheryl Sew Hoy, CEO and founder of Austin-based Tiny Health, a fast-growing at-home microbiome health platform. See the full list of winners here.

NASA clears Artemis moon rocket for April launch with 4 astronauts

3, 2, 1...

NASA has cleared its moon rocket on for an April launch with four astronauts after completing the latest round of repairs.

The 322-foot (98-meter) rocket will roll out of the hangar and back to the pad at Florida's Kennedy Space Center, leading to a launch attempt as early as April 1. It will mark humanity's first trip to the moon in more than 50 years.

The Artemis II crew should have blasted off on a lunar flyaround earlier this year, but fuel leaks and other problems with the Space Launch System rocket interfered.

Although NASA managed to plug the hydrogen fuel leaks at the pad in February, a helium-flow issue forced the space agency to return the rocket to the Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs, bumping the mission to April.

The space agency has only six days at the beginning of April to launch before standing down until April 30 into early May.

"It's a test flight and it is not without risk, but our team and our hardware are ready,” NASA's Lori Glaze told reporters at the end of the two-day flight readiness review.

Glaze and other NASA officials declined to provide the risk probabilities for the upcoming mission.

History has shown that a new rocket has essentially a 50% chance of success, said John Honeycutt, chair of the mission management team.

There's so much gap since the only other SLS flight — more than three years ago without anyone on board — that it's difficult to understand any risk assessment numbers, Honeycutt said.

“It's not the first flight," Glaze said. "But we're also not in a regular cadence. So we definitely have significantly more risk than a flight system that's flying all the time.”

Late last month NASA's new administrator, Jared Isaacman, announced a major overhaul of the Artemis program to speed things up and, by doing so, reduce risk.

Dissatisfied with the slow pace and lengthy gaps between lunar missions, he added an extra practice flight in orbit around Earth for next year. That is now the new Artemis III, with the moon landing by two astronauts shifted to Artemis IV. Isaacman is targeting one and maybe even two lunar landings in 2028.

NASA's Office of Inspector General warned in an audit that the space agency needs to come up with a rescue plan for its lunar crews. Landing near the moon's south pole will be riskier than it was for the Apollo astronauts closer to the equator given the rough polar terrain, according to the report.

The report cited the lunar landers as the top contributor for potential loss of crew during the first few Artemis moon landings. It listed the space agency’s loss-of-crew threshold at 1-in-40 for lunar operations and 1-in-30 for Artemis missions overall.

Contracted by NASA to provide the moon landers for astronauts, Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin have accelerated work in order to meet the new 2028 target date. The inspector general's office said many technical challenges remain including refueling their landers in orbit around Earth before flying to the moon.

NASA sent 24 astronauts to the moon during Apollo, 12 of whom landed on it. All but one of the moonshots — Apollo 13 — achieved their prime objectives. The program ended with Apollo 17 in 1972.

Kinder leads 19 Houstonians on Forbes' World's Billionaires List 2026

World's Richest 2026

According to Forbes, there has “never been a better time to be a billionaire” than in 2026, and the publication's newest World’s Billionaires List has revealed the 19 Houston billionaires that have risen among the wealthiest worldwide.

Kinder Morgan chairman Richard Kinder surpassed hospitality honcho Tilman Fertitta as the richest billionaire in Houston, ranking No. 232 on the global list with an estimated net worth of $13 billion. His net worth has grown by $2.4 billion since last year.

Fertitta, 68, may not be the richest Houstonian anymore, but his wealth is still on the rise. He ranked 268th on the list with an estimated net worth of $11.7 billion, up from $11.3 billion last year.

Out of the 390 billionaire newbies that made their debut onto the list this year, one of them calls Houston home: restaurateur and commodities trader Ignacio Torras. Torras, 61, is the founder and CEO of global commodities trading company Tricon Energy, and he owns Michelin-starred local restaurant BCN Taste & Tradition and its sister eatery MAD. But that's not all he spends his time doing, according to Forbes.

"In 2024 Torras launched a soccer tournament for neurodivergent players called the Genuine Cup," his profile said. "Last year 800 players and 30 teams from around the world played at Rice University stadium."

Torras debuted as No. 2600 on the list with an estimated net worth of $1.5 billion.

Houston-born multi-hyphenate superstar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter also staked a claim among the world's richest people in 2026. She ranked No. 3332 on the list with a net worth of $1 billion, thanks to her "years of music sales, touring and collecting art with her already-billionaire husband Jay-Z (estimated net worth: $2.8 billion)," Forbes said.

"The majority of pop star Beyonce’s net worth comes from her roughly three decades as a solo performer and a member of the girl-group Destiny's Child," her profile said. "She holds the record for the most Grammy wins ever, with 35, and won her first Album of the Year trophy in 2025. She and her billionaire husband Jay-Z purchased a $200 million Malibu mansion in 2023, in what was the most expensive home sale in California history."

Beyoncé also ranks No. 21 in the publication's separate list of The World's Celebrity Billionaires.

Here's how the rest of Houston's billionaires fared on this year's list:

  • Toyota mega-dealer Dan Friedkin: No. 279; $11.4 billion, up from $7.7 billion
  • Pipeline heir Randa Duncan Williams: tied for No. 323 with an estimated net worth of $10.2 billion, up from $9.3 billion in 2025. Fellow pipeline heirs Dannine Avara and Milane Frantz tied for No. 332 globally. Each has an estimated net worth of $10.1 billion, up from $9.2 billion. Scott Duncan ranks No. 353 with a $9.8 billion estimated net worth, up from $9 billion in 2025.
  • Oil tycoon Jeffery Hildebrand: No. 341; $10 billion, up from $7.7 billion
  • Houston Texans owner Janice McNair and family: No. 528; $7.3 billion, up from $6.2 billion
  • Energy exploration chief exec George Bishop of The Woodlands: No. 908; $4.7 billion, down from $5 billion
  • Westlake Corporation co-owners Albert Chao, James Chao and their families: tied for No. 1074; $4 billion, flat from 2025
  • Hedge fund honcho John Arnold: No. 1504; $2.8 billion, down from $2.9 billion
  • Perry Homes executive chair Kathy Britton: No. 1611; $2.6 billion, flat from 2025
  • Houston Astros owner Jim Crane: No. 1676; $2.5 billion, up from $2.4 billion
  • Former Houston Rockets owner Leslie Alexander: No. 1834; $2.3 billion, up from $1.9 billion
  • Mercedes-Benz mega-dealer Joe Agresti: No. 3185; $1.1 billion, flat from 2025
  • Frontier Airlines chairman William Franke: No. 3332; $1 billion, down from $1.2 billion

Elsewhere in Texas

Austin billionaire Elon Musk was declared the world's richest person for the second consecutive year, and Forbes said his “grip on the top spot is as strong as it’s ever been.”

“Musk became the first person to hit $500 billion in wealth, in October,” Forbes said. “Then $600 billion and $700 billion, within four days in December. Then $800 billion, in February.”

The Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI founder’s current net worth has skyrocketed to $839 billion — a shocking $497 billion more than his 2025 net worth.

In Dallas-Fort Worth, Walmart heiress Alice Walton has maintained her elite status as the world’s richest woman for the third year in a row. Walton is the 14th richest person on the planet with a current net worth of $134 billion, an eye-catching $33 billion higher than her 2025 net worth. She is the first American woman worth $100 billion, and one of only 20 “centi-billionaires” worldwide claiming 12-figure fortunes, also known as the "$100 Billion Club."

Koch Inc. stakeholder Elaine Marshall and her family are the richest Dallas residents, ranking No. 71 globally with an estimated net worth of $30.9 billion. Her net worth has grown by $2.6 billion since last year.

---

This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

View All Listings