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Podcast: How AI-powered detection can prevent workplace accidents before they happen

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Stephen Ojji is rethinking workplace safety. Courtesy photo

Workplace safety has always been reactive. Incidents happen, reports are filed, lessons are learned — sometimes too late. But what if safety wasn’t about reacting to accidents, but preventing them altogether?

In this episode of the Energy Tech Startups Podcast, Stephen Ojji, founder and CEO of VisionTech, challenges how high-hazard industries approach safety. His vision? AI-driven incident detection that doesn’t just monitor the workplace —i t actively prevents injuries, ensures compliance, and builds a stronger safety culture.

From Oil and Gas Safety to AI Innovation

Stephen’s journey into energy tech isn’t what you’d expect. Starting as a safety engineer in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector, his early career was focused on ensuring compliance, training teams, and reducing workplace risks. But he quickly realized a flaw in the system — many incidents weren’t being reported at all.

"Workers don’t always report hazards, and not because they don’t care," he explains. "Sometimes it’s fear of consequences. Sometimes it’s just human nature — we’re focused on getting the job done. But ignoring small risks leads to big accidents."

That’s where VisionTech’s AI-powered safety monitoring system comes in. Instead of relying on human reporting, VisionTech integrates with existing workplace cameras, using computer vision technology and AI to detect:

  • Spills, fire hazards, and safety violations in real-time
  • Workers at risk of injury due to incorrect lifting techniques or missing PPE
  • Trends in safety culture, helping companies address recurring risks

"Think of it like having an extra set of eyes that never blinks," Stephen says. "Not to police workers, but to protect them."

AI and Safety: Moving Beyond Compliance to Prevention

Unlike traditional workplace monitoring, VisionTech’s AI safety system doesn’t track individuals — it tracks behaviors. The system uses ghosting technology, ensuring that workers’ identities remain anonymous while hazards are flagged instantly.

This shifts the focus from penalizing mistakes to empowering safer work environments.

"Companies say they care about safety, but what does that really mean?" Stephen challenges. "If safety is the priority, why not use every tool available to protect workers before an accident happens?"

And here’s the kicker: VisionTech doesn’t just detect risks. It helps companies act on them.

Instead of logging safety incidents in spreadsheets that go unread, the system transforms safety data into actionable insights — identifying patterns, trends, and areas for improvement that help companies make real, lasting changes.

Why Now? The Urgency for Smarter Safety Solutions

With OSHA regulations tightening and ESG commitments pushing for stronger worker protections, industrial companies are under growing pressure to do more than just meet compliance standards.

At the same time, AI and machine learning have advanced rapidly, making AI-powered safety monitoring more affordable, scalable, and accurate than ever before.

"If we had tried to build this 10 years ago, it wouldn’t have worked," Stephen admits. "The technology wasn’t ready. The market wasn’t ready. But today? It’s the right time, and the right tool for a problem that’s been ignored for too long."

What’s Next for VisionTech?

Currently in the MVP stage, VisionTech is preparing for pilot programs with oil and gas companies to prove its impact in real-world environments. The plan? Scale beyond oil and gas into manufacturing, construction, and any industry where safety matters.

But for Stephen, this isn’t just about launching another safety product — it’s about changing how companies think about protecting their workers.

"Safety isn’t just a compliance box to check," he says. "It’s about people. If companies really believe that ‘our employees are our greatest asset,’ then investing in their safety should be the easiest decision they ever make."

This is a conversation you don’t want to miss.

See the full episode with Stephen Ojji on the Energy Tech Startups Podcast below, or click here to listen.

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Energy Tech Startups Podcast is hosted by Jason Ethier and Nada Ahmed. It delves into Houston's pivotal role in the energy transition, spotlighting entrepreneurs and industry leaders shaping a low-carbon future.

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The question isn't whether AI will change work – it's whether we'll use this moment to finally build workplaces that enhance rather than diminish our humanity. Photo via Getty Images

Energy tech expert on how AI is changing in the workplace — and what employers need to recognize

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When OpenAI's GPT-4 made headlines by passing the bar exam and scoring in the top 10 percent on medical licensing tests, I noticed something fascinating: everyone focused on AI replacing professionals, but they missed the deeper story. AI isn't just disrupting work – it's exposing fundamental flaws in how we've built our entire workplace ecosystem. It's holding up a mirror to our organizations, revealing just how far we've strayed from what makes us uniquely human.

The World Economic Forum tells us 44 percent of workers' skills will need updating by 2027, but that statistic only scratches the surface. In my conversations with business leaders, I'm watching a transformation unfold in real-time. Take the accounting industry, where I've observed forward-thinking firms like Deloitte and PwC turning their accountants into strategic business advisors while other firms continue training junior staff for tasks that AI will soon handle. This isn't just a skills mismatch – it's a fundamental misunderstanding of human potential.

The challenge runs deeper than individual industries. McKinsey predicts 30 percent of hours worked globally could be automated by 2030, but I believe they're missing a crucial point. We've spent decades designing jobs around industrial-era ideals of efficiency and standardization – the very qualities that make them perfect targets for AI automation. In our obsession with measuring, standardizing, and streamlining everything, we've created workplaces that treat humans like machines rather than the complex, creative beings we are.

What's emerging is a striking paradox: as work becomes more automated, our workplace cultures are growing more disconnected. Microsoft researchers identified a "collaboration deficit" in remote work environments, with 56 percent of employees reporting a decline in workplace friendships. This cultural shift is occurring precisely when we need human connection most. During the Great Resignation of 2021, 47 million Americans quit their jobs, they weren't leaving because of salary considerations or technological inadequacies. The most common reasons cited were lack of human connection, purpose, and authentic leadership.

Yet instead of heeding this wake-up call, the rise of AI is pushing us further apart. A decade ago, the concept of "workplace family" was commonplace – now it's often dismissed as manipulative corporate rhetoric. This shift reveals a troubling blindspot in our thinking about work. Consider this: we spend more than 90,000 hours at work over our lifetime – more time than we spend with our own families – yet we're increasingly treating these relationships as purely transactional. In our rush to establish boundaries and protect ourselves from corporate exploitation, we've overcorrected, creating sterile workplaces stripped of human connection.

This timing couldn't be worse. As someone who studies the intersection of technology and workplace culture, I've observed a clear pattern: the more we automate routine tasks, the more our success depends on distinctly human qualities like trust, emotional sensitivity, and the ability to navigate complex interpersonal dynamics. Yet we're systematically dismantling the very cultural foundations that enable these qualities to flourish. It's as if we're entering a boxing match by tying one hand behind our back – at precisely the moment we need every advantage we can get.

The real crisis isn't that AI might replace jobs – it's that we're creating workplace environments that suppress the very qualities that make us irreplaceable. When we treat our colleagues as mere interfaces rather than complex human beings, we don't just damage relationships – we damage our capacity for innovation, creativity, and the kind of deep collaboration that complex problem-solving requires.

Some companies are starting to get it right. When I look at examples like IKEA, who chose to retrain their call center workers as interior design advisors rather than simply replacing them with chatbots, I see a glimpse of what's possible. They recognized something profound: you can't automate the human ability to understand what a frustrated customer really needs, or the intuition to read between the lines of what they're saying.

This is what I call the "human edge" – and it's far more nuanced than most leadership teams realize. It's the marketing manager who can sense team tension during a video call and address it before it derails a project. It's the sales representative who builds such strong relationships that clients stay loyal through market upheavals. It's the team leader who knows exactly when to push for more and when to show compassion. These aren't just nice-to-have soft skills – they're becoming our most valuable business assets.

But here's the challenge: we're still trying to measure workplace success like it's 1990. We track productivity metrics, sales numbers, and project timelines, but how do we quantify someone's ability to defuse a tense client situation? How do we measure the value of a team leader who creates an environment where people feel safe to innovate? These human capabilities – empathy, emotional intelligence, relationship building, creative problem-solving – are increasingly what separate successful companies from failing ones, yet they're nearly impossible to capture in a performance review.

When I talk to business leaders, I tell them bluntly: if a job can be reduced to a process, AI will eventually do it better. Our value lies in all the messy, human things that happen between the bullet points of a job description. Instead of asking "How many tasks did you complete?" we should be asking "How did you help your team navigate that difficult change?" Instead of training people to follow processes, we should be developing their ability to build relationships and navigate complexity.

It's time we started treating these human capabilities not as soft skills, but as core business competencies. The question isn't whether AI will change work – it's whether we'll use this moment to finally build workplaces that enhance rather than diminish our humanity.

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Nada Ahmed is the founding partner at Houston-based Energy Tech Nexus and author of Amazon Bestseller “Determined to Lead- The Disruptive Woman's Guide to Stop Playing Small and Transform your Career through Agile Leadership.”

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Houston expert: From EVs to F-35s — materials that power our future are in short supply

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If you’re reading this on a phone, driving an EV, flying in a plane, or relying on the power grid to keep your lights on, you’re benefiting from critical minerals. These are the building blocks of modern life. Things like copper, lithium, nickel, rare earth elements, and titanium, they’re found in everything from smartphones to solar panels to F-35 fighter jets.

In short: no critical minerals, no modern economy.

These minerals aren’t just useful, they’re essential. And in the U.S., we don’t produce enough of them. Worse, we’re heavily dependent on countries that don’t always have our best interests at heart. That’s a serious vulnerability, and we’ve done far too little to fix it.

Where We Use Them and Why We’re Behind

Let’s start with where these minerals show up in daily American life:

  • Electric vehicles need lithium, cobalt, and nickel for batteries.
  • Wind turbines and solar panels rely on rare earths and specialty metals.
  • Defense systems require titanium, beryllium, and rare earths.
  • Basic infrastructure like power lines and buildings depend on copper and aluminum.

You’d think that something so central to the economy, and to national security, would be treated as a top priority. But we’ve let production and processing capabilities fall behind at home, and now we’re playing catch-up.

The Reality Check: We’re Not in Control

Right now, the U.S. is deeply reliant on foreign sources for critical minerals, especially China. And it’s not just about mining. China dominates processing and refining too, which means they control critical links in the supply chain.

Gabriel Collins and Michelle Michot Foss from the Baker Institute lay all this out in a recent report that every policymaker should read. Their argument is blunt: if we don’t get a handle on this, we’re in trouble, both economically and militarily.

China has already imposed export controls on key rare earth elements like dysprosium and terbium which are critical for magnets, batteries, and defense technologies, in direct response to new U.S. tariffs. This kind of tit-for-tat escalation exposes just how much leverage we’ve handed over. If this continues, American manufacturers could face serious material shortages, higher costs, and stalled projects.

We’ve seen this movie before, in the pandemic, when supply chains broke and countries scrambled for basics like PPE and semiconductors. We should’ve learned our lesson.

We Do Have a Stockpile, But We Need a Strategy

Unlike during the Cold War, the U.S. no longer maintains comprehensive strategic reserves across the board, but we do have stockpiles managed by the Defense Logistics Agency. The real issue isn’t absence, it’s strategy: what to stockpile, how much, and under what assumptions.

Collins and Michot Foss argue for a more robust and better-targeted approach. That could mean aiming for 12 to 18 months worth of demand for both civilian and defense applications. Achieving that will require:

  • Smarter government purchasing and long-term contracts
  • Strategic deals with allies (e.g., swapping titanium for artillery shells with Ukraine)
  • Financing mechanisms to help companies hold critical inventory for emergency use

It’s not cheap, but it’s cheaper than scrambling mid-crisis when supplies are suddenly cut off.

The Case for Advanced Materials: Substitutes That Work Today

One powerful but often overlooked solution is advanced materials, which can reduce our dependence on vulnerable mineral supply chains altogether.

Take carbon nanotube (CNT) fibers, a cutting-edge material invented at Rice University. CNTs are lighter, stronger, and more conductive than copper. And unlike some future tech, this isn’t hypothetical: we could substitute CNTs for copper wire harnesses in electrical systems today.

As Michot Foss explained on the Energy Forum podcast:

“You can substitute copper and steel and aluminum with carbon nanotube fibers and help offset some of those trade-offs and get performance enhancements as well… If you take carbon nanotube fibers and you put those into a wire harness… you're going to be reducing the weight of that wire harness versus a metal wire harness like we already use. And you're going to be getting the same benefit in terms of electrical conductivity, but more strength to allow the vehicle, the application, the aircraft, to perform better.”

By accelerating R&D and deployment of CNTs and similar substitutes, we can reduce pressure on strained mineral supply chains, lower emissions, and open the door to more secure and sustainable manufacturing.

We Have Tools. We Need to Use Them.

The report offers a long list of solutions. Some are familiar, like tax incentives, public-private partnerships, and fast-tracked permits. Others draw on historical precedent, like “preclusive purchasing,” a WWII tactic where the U.S. bought up materials just so enemies couldn’t.

We also need to get creative:

  • Repurpose existing industrial sites into mineral hubs
  • Speed up R&D for substitutes and recycling
  • Buy out risky foreign-owned assets in friendlier countries

Permitting remains one of the biggest hurdles. In the U.S., it can take 7 to 10 years to approve a new critical minerals project, a timeline that doesn’t match the urgency of our strategic needs. As Collins said on the Energy Forum podcast:

“Time kills deals... That’s why it’s more attractive generally to do these projects elsewhere.”

That’s the reality we’re up against. Long approval windows discourage investment and drive developers to friendlier jurisdictions abroad. One encouraging step is the use of the Defense Production Act to fast-track permitting under national security grounds. That kind of shift, treating permitting as a strategic imperative, must become the norm, not the exception.

It’s Time to Redefine Sustainability

Sustainability has traditionally focused on cutting carbon emissions. That’s still crucial, but we need a broader definition. Today, energy and materials security are just as important.

Countries are now weighing cost and reliability alongside emissions goals. We're also seeing renewed attention to recycling, biodiversity, and supply chain resilience.

Net-zero by 2050 is still a target. But reality is forcing a more nuanced discussion:

  • What level of warming is politically and economically sustainable?
  • What tradeoffs are we willing to make to ensure energy access and affordability?

The bottom line: we can’t build a clean energy future without secure access to materials. Recycling helps, but it’s not enough. We'll need new mines, new tech, and a more flexible definition of sustainability.

My Take: We’re Running Out of Time

This isn’t just a policy debate. It’s a test of whether we’ve learned anything from the past few years of disruption. We’re not facing an open war, but the risks are real and growing.

We need to treat critical minerals like what they are: a strategic necessity. That means rebuilding stockpiles, reshoring processing, tightening alliances, and accelerating permitting across the board.

It won’t be easy. But if we wait until a real crisis hits, it’ll be too late.

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Scott Nyquist is a senior advisor at McKinsey & Company and vice chairman, Houston Energy Transition Initiative of the Greater Houston Partnership. The views expressed herein are Nyquist's own and not those of McKinsey & Company or of the Greater Houston Partnership. This article originally appeared on LinkedIn on April 11, 2025.


Houston startup unveils sustainable bio-based leather at the rodeo

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Last month’s Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo stirred up another rootin’ tootin’ time for Houstonians and beyond.

But before the annual event galloped into the sunset, there were quite a few memorable innovations on display, with one notably coming from Rheom Materials.

The Houston-based pioneer of next-generation materials presented its scalable, bio-based alternative known as Shorai, a 93 percent bio-based leather, through two custom, western-inspired outfits that showed off cowboy flair through a sustainable lens.

“I'm a Houstonian, I love the rodeo,” Megan Beck, Rheom’s business development manager, recalls. “We're sitting there talking about it one day and we're like, ‘Okay, we've got to do something with this leather to show people how good it can look in apparel, how easy it is to wear.’”

Buoyed by the idea that their materials are meant to “change your impact, not your life,” Rheom captured the real-life energy of their bio-leather outfits under the rodeo’s neon lights in a short commercial video and photo shoot with models donning the samples, while dancing and enjoying the festivities. Rheom created a skirt, a leather jacket, and then a leather top for the look.

“Houston is such a vibrant city,” Beck says. “There's so much innovation here. I think the rodeo is just a really, really great example of that. And so we wanted to take this opportunity to take some of these garments out there and go on the slide, go on some of the rides, go into the wine garden and go dancing, because if you've ever felt some of the materials in the market in this space, they're very stiff, you can't really move in them, they're a little fragile, they kind of fall apart.”

Not only do the models in the video look fashionable, but they also look comfortable, and the leather looks natural and supple. And to the naked eye, Shorai appears to be like the leather most wearers are accustomed to.

“What we really wanted to showcase in this is the energy and the movement of the leather, and to show people how good it can look in apparel, and how easy it is to wear, which I think we were able to accomplish,” Beck says.

Next up, Beck says Rheom wants to scale production of Shorai, the Japanese word for “future,” at a competitive price point, while also reducing its carbon footprint by 80 percent when compared to synthetic leather. According to Beck, Rheom plans to see Shorai products come to market sometime this year.

“We have companies globally right now that are testing materials, that are prototyping, that are making garments, making handbags and footwear, and making eyewear because we have a plastic, as well,” Beck says. “So, this year, I do believe we'll start seeing those products actually come to market, which is very, very exciting for us.”

And with their large-scale production partner already set up for Shorai, Rheom plans to start its first production run of the product soon.

“In April, we'll actually be starting our first production run,” Beck says. “We'll be doing it at full scale, full width, and a full run of materials. So over the next five years, we're only going to just try to increase that capacity.”

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This story originally appeared on our sister site, InnovationMap.


New report shows Texas led the nation in solar and wind storage in Q4 2024

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When it comes to the storage of solar and wind energy, Texas might be able to swipe the Sunshine State nickname from Florida.

The Lone Star State led all states in the fourth quarter of 2024 with the installation of 1.2 gigawatts’ worth of utility-scale energy storage for solar and wind power, according to the recently released U.S. Energy Storage Monitor. In second place was California, with 875 megawatts’ worth of utility-scale storage installed in the fourth quarter. Together, Texas and California represented 61 percent of the total installed capacity in the final three months of last year.

The American Clean Power Association and Wood Mackenzie, a provider of data and analytics for the energy sector, issued the report.

Utility-scale systems stash large amounts of electricity generated by solar and wind for future use, easing the strain on power grids during periods of peak usage and power outages.

“Energy storage is solidifying its place as a leading solution for strengthening American energy security and grid reliability in a time of historic rising demand for electricity,” Noah Roberts, vice president of energy storage at the clean power organization, said in a statement. “The energy storage industry has quickly scaled to meet the moment, and deliver reliability and cost savings for American communities, serving a critical role [in] firming and balancing low-cost renewables.”

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