To accommodate the growing demand for skilled workers, major energy companies are investing in local universities and colleges to equip the future workforce with the necessary skills needed to achieve an energy-abundant and low carbon future.    Shell Energy and bp America recently made a $1.7 million donation to Prairie View A&M (PVAM) to support the establishment of an energy trading program that aims to increase diversity in the industry. The two-year program will offer classroom and corporate training and individual mentoring experience, according to PVAM’s news release.  “The students at Prairie View A&M University are primed to bring new perspectives and voices into the energy sector,” said Carolyn Comer, President, Shell Energy North America. “The Energy Trading Program is a significant step in attracting the best and most diverse talent and giving them the training, mentoring and hands-on experience needed to forge successful paths after graduation.”  This isn’t the first investment into PVAM for Shell or bp. Last year, bp awarded the university $1.35 million through its HBCU Fellowship Program, providing students with scholarship funding, exposure to the energy industry and career development experience.  “We need the best and the brightest talent as we transform our company,” said Mark Crawford, bp’s senior vice president, global diversity, equity and inclusion. “We are thrilled to work with [Prairie View A&M University] and provide students with an opportunity to earn a degree while giving them real-world experience in the exciting and evolving energy sector.”  LyondellBasell has also taken major strides to advance this effort by partnering with San Jacinto College. In 2019, the energy giant helped the university open its Center for Petrochemical Energy and Technology through a $5 million donation. Featuring an array of interactive classrooms, labs, workstations and collaborative spaces, the center aims to provide students with hands-on training and experience to equip them for a job in the industry.   "The need for a facility like this has never been greater," Jim Griffin, CPET associate vice chancellor and senior vice president, said in a news release. "We're seeing a growing industry that's investing more than $60 billion in new capital locally. At the same time our baby boomers are exiting the workforce, so the workforce needs are growing along with the job opportunities. This new facility expands the College's capabilities to bridge that gap by developing and training the industry's current and future workforce in a technologically advanced environment designed with industry input."  Recently, Woodside Energy provided $12.5 million to support Rice University’s decarbonization initiative that aims to bring breakthrough decarbonization technology from the Rice labs to market, focusing on manufacturing products derived from captured carbon dioxide and methane.  Additionally, Accenture is also working to bridge the middle-skills gap in Houston’s emerging Hydrogen economy through its collaboration with the Partnership’s Houston Energy Transition Initiative (HETI) and Upskill Houston. This effort will map key hydrogen careers and offer new opportunities for Houston’s disadvantaged communities to be part of the energy transition.    Learn more about Houston's Energy Transition Initiative. 

Houston’s tech scene has made many strides in recent years to set a foundation for startups to thrive, from founding to late stage, across industries. With a wealth of incubators coming online and a sharp uptick in venture capital funding, startups now have more landing spots and opportunity for growth in Houston than ever before.   We spoke to three tech startups about their experiences in Houston, including two that launched last year and one that recently relocated to Houston.   Envana Software Solutions Envana, a software-as-a-service company built to organize, model and forecast oil and gas industry emissions, has experienced tremendous growth since its launch in January 2023. The startup is a joint venture by Halliburton and Siguler Guff.  Envana's growth is marked by clients including the world’s second-largest oilfield services provider, national oil companies in APAC and Europe, and leading U.S. service providers. As the company prepares for future goals, Envana says it is looking not only to respond to demands within oil and gas, but to other energy sectors to help corporations manage their emissions.  “There’s no better place in the world for an oil and gas SaaS company to be based than Houston, Texas.  Houston is the ideal birth city for an energy startup.  For Envana –a Halliburton JV with private equity firm Siguler Guff– the city’s features, including access to investment capital, industry experts, and thought leadership in the evolving energy space, make it a prime geography. The number of energy companies based in Houston looking for innovative industry solutions is unparalleled elsewhere in the world.”  - Sally Lechin, Global Marketing, Envana  Allthenticate  Allthenticate describes itself as a cybersecurity startup on a mission to create seamless and efficient security solutions for companies via a smartphone application. The company is primarily focused on security at tech companies, though they intend to expand more of their presence to medtech and energy.   Allthenticate’s story began in 2012 as co-founder Dr. Chad Spensky pursued his PhD, eventually earning a job as a security researcher at MIT working to find gaps in security. Spensky and co-founder Rita Mounir teamed up at a startup competition at UC-Santa Barbara, taking first place and getting traction with early investors. The company was headquartered in Santa Barbara until 2022, when Spensky and his wife relocated to Houston. Allthenticate officially relocated to downtown later that year following a short stint in The Ion and learning of the many advantages the region offers as a hub for headquarters.  Allthenticate is going through another fundraising round following a $3.9 million round in 2022. The team says it remains focused on perfecting the hardware, software and application amid a rapidly changing list of security challenges, including deepfakes.  “As we’re pushing so many world’s firsts in our industry, I think our goal is to become the premier identity and access management company in the world. A lot of giants are trying to catch up, but I think we have an advantage here in what we’re doing and what we’ve built so far. In five years, I believe we will be THE identity management solution.” – Rita Mounir, Co-founder, Allthenticate  Think Diffusion  In 2023, three-time startup founder Phu Ngo produced Think Diffusion, an advanced AI video production platform. Think Diffusion has already established itself with noteworthy names, producing animated content for Toyota, McDonald’s and even a music video for Toni Braxton. Think Diffusion leverages cutting-edge open-source AI technologies to offer a comprehensive and integrated platform for AI art and video generation. Its commitment to open-source has led three universities - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, PVCC-Melbourne, and the National University of Singapore - to adopt Think Diffusion for their innovation labs.  Think Diffusion was started by Ngo, a Vietnamese-born Houstonian whose family found opportunity in the Lone Star State as he was growing up. Following an education at UT-Austin and UC-Santa Barbara, Ngo established himself as a software developer, eventually launching three startups. Think Diffusion spun out of Kinetic Chain Labs following a special request for animated video content, which resulted in an ultra-sophisticated art generator. For Ngo, Houston serves as an ideal place to start a business and call home.  “Houston is home for me, it has great tax advantages and there’s a lot to like. I’m excited by the growing tech hub forming here – I think the startup community at the Ion is a great example of that. On top of that, the food is amazing, the weather is great, and you get a great ROI on your money – it’s amazing here in terms of quality of life.” – Phu Ngo, CEO, Think Diffusion  Currently, Think Diffusion states that it is working on launching new experimental open-source products, expanding into AI-generated text and music, and increasing its focus on the education industry. Looking ahead, the team is ready to embrace the challenges and advantages that the future of AI could bring.  Learn more about Houston’s tech and innovation ecosystem.