Seventy-five students from Houston Community College's new two-year artificial intelligence program will attend NVIDIA's GTC conference next month.
Calling it the greatest field trip of all time, the program's coordinator, G. Raymond Brown, sees it as a way to bring students in the program up to speed fast.
The program at HCC, launched in August 2020, aims to get skilled workers into Houston's booming job market. HCC reaches more than 110,000 students per year, making it one of the largest and most diverse two-year public colleges in the United States.
We've found GTC to be a marvelous resource, said Brown, who first sent students to the conference in April. Being virtual has made an enormous difference for us.
Bringing More Skills to More Workers GTC is one of the premier events in AI, accelerated computing, autonomous vehicles and robotics.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the conference brought together innovators from various industries at events in Silicon Valley and around the world.
But GTC went virtual in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold.
When that happened, Brown and USAi Labs, a Houston nonprofit developer network specializing in mentoring, education and intelligence-based R&D, sprang into action.
With the bulk of the conference free, and no need to worry about a travel budget, GTC's lineup of speakers, training sessions and keynotes could become an invaluable resource.
That's what Brown - who holds a Ph.D. in physics from Duke University and is known as Doc Brown - was looking to add to HCC's AI program.
The cost of tuition at four-year colleges in the United States has never been higher, leaving many students with enormous debts.
At the same time, worldwide demand for AI skills is surging.
And there are a vast number of opportunities in Houston, America's most diverse city, with its medical, aerospace, oil and gas, and technology industries, Brown said.
Brown, who has worked in private industry and as a physics professor at four-year colleges, knows this territory well.
Two years ago, he saw an opportunity for an affordable two-year college program at HCC that could make a difference by engaging a broad population of students.
The goal: prepare them for jobs as AI support specialists who can help enterprise teams put the latest AI technologies to work.
As a result, Brown's students are already busy.
He said that many already have part-time jobs and side gigs, even before his nascent program has graduated a single student.
One student, Denzel Wilson (left), spent the summer at Rice University, helping graduate students and faculty in bio-genomics put AI techniques to work to advance their research.
Another student recently gave a presentation on the latest AI techniques at the Pumps and Pipes meetup. It brings Houston's world-class oil and gas engineers together with members of the region's medical community to exchange ideas.
Brown says such opportunities can be the first rung on the career ladder for his students, many of whom are from disadvantaged backgrounds.
And many employers are eager to pay for more training and education for new hires, letting students accumulate in-demand skills rather than debt.
Others, such as Neethi Anand Gangidi (right), who already holds master's degrees in chemical engineering and subsea engineering, see HCC's AI program as a way to swiftly add practical AI to their skill sets.
Digging In In the spring, Brown added GTC to three of the program's courses - History, Theory and Platforms 1370, Machine Learning in AI 1371, and Computer Vision in AI 1378 - in two course modules with assignments, discussions and presentations.
Some courses in the program even make use of teaching kits from NVIDIA's Deep Learning Institute.
Brown reports students dug right in, starting with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang's keynote. Some students, like Gangidi, sat in on dozens of sessions across a wide variety of industries.
Having the opportunity to learn what's going on in the AI industry is really awesome, Gangidi said.
From there, students chose sessions that piqued their interest. Brown reports that many were overwhelmed in the first few days, but they soon got their bearings.
They began to pick up on who was influential in the world of AI. They started to understand trends in the field better. And they got a broader perspective on the growing number of industries it's reshaping, Brown reports.
There are just so many things to take in, said Wilson, who is taking courses at HCC while he works as a laboratory assistant.
One of the most valuable lessons students learned from seasoned pros working in AI is that it's a process rather than a product.
Most of the kids were surprised, Brown said. Most students believe everything should work out of the box. They don't realize that good AI is a matter of gradually getting to the right answers, not an instant answer.
Brown's eager to send students back for more. For next month's GTC, he's expanding the amount of coursework built around GTC.
We want our students to see themselves as the professionals they are becoming, Brown said. That starts with inclusion in events like GTC.
North America Stories
06/04/2026
Michigan legends bring a new voice to the broadcast as TNT Sports and CBS Sports...
06/04/2026
From high school sports all the way up to the major leagues, building high-quali...
06/04/2026
Quickplay, an AI company for the media and entertainment industry, has been accepted into the Advanced tier of the TwelveLabs Ecosystem Partner Program. Quickpl...
06/04/2026
Grass Valley has announced the Future Playmakers Program, a global initiative to...
06/04/2026
El l der de operaciones impulsa la producci n en estudio mientras encuentra insp...
06/04/2026
The ops leader helps lead the charge in studio for the Spanish-language broadcas...
06/04/2026
Behind The Mic provides a roundup of recent news regarding on-air talent, includ...
06/04/2026
The National Hockey League (NHL), in partnership with Verizon and the New Jersey Devils, today announced the opening of the NHL Innovation Lab powered by Verizo...
06/04/2026
Rock League, a new professional curling league, has announced that ESPN+ will stream its inaugural 2026 season for fans in the United States. The first Rock Lea...
06/04/2026
Advanced Systems Group has announced the appointment of Andrea (Andy) Cummis as Vice President of Systems Design and Engineering. In this role, she will lead de...
06/04/2026
Backed by Bolt Ventures, the venture brings Bryson DeChambeau, Grant Horvat, and...
06/04/2026
With this environment we can start that collaboration even earlier because we ca...
06/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/04/2026
Dalet Showcases Dalia Agentic AI and End-to-End Media Workflows at NAB Show 2026
Brie Clayton April 6, 2026
0 Comments
Dalet, a leading technology and...
06/04/2026
OpenDrives Shows Off Sports Expertise in Sports Business Hub located in NAB Show...
06/04/2026
Proton to Demonstrate 3D Application at NAB 2026
Brie Clayton April 6, 2026
0 Comments
Yet further creative potential unleashed through innovation in ...
06/04/2026
Autoscript Highlights Voice-Driven Prompting and PTZ Solutions at NAB 2026
Brie Clayton April 6, 2026
0 Comments
Experience Autoscript Voice, PTZ prom...
06/04/2026
Mediaproxy Highlights Significant Enhancements to its LogServer suite at NAB Sho...
06/04/2026
April 6th, 2026
TRIBECA STUDIOS AND LILLY ANNOUNCE WINNERS OF INAUGURAL VITAL...
06/04/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Expands Kids Entertainment Lineup With Playground App ...
04/04/2026
The University of Arizona's Men's Basketball team has only loss twice th...
04/04/2026
1080p HDR arrives, a new generation of storytelling tools takes center stage, an...
04/04/2026
Michigan legends bring a new voice to the broadcast as TNT Sports and CBS Sports...
04/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/04/2026
DHD Introduces AI-Based Audio Noise Reduction to XD3 IP Core
Brie Clayton April 3, 2026
0 Comments
The accompanying image shows the rear panel of the ...
04/04/2026
Macnica Redefines ST 2110 Flexibility with Two Speeds on One Card
Brie Clayton April 3, 2026
0 Comments
New for NAB Show 2026, MEP100 SmartNIC now sup...
04/04/2026
Unified Media Workflows for Story-Centric Production
Brie Clayton April 3, 2026
0 Comments
Framelight X unifies field capture, editing and publishing ...
03/04/2026
Michigan's Fab Five will reunite for an alternate presentation of the Mich...
03/04/2026
Avid will exhibit at NAB Show 2026 (April 18-22, Booth N2226, Las Vegas Convention Center), demonstrating its Content Core platform and new AI-driven workflow c...
03/04/2026
Mark Roberts Motion Control (MRMC) has announced the appointment of Nick Barthee as Chief Operating Officer.
The announcement follows MRMC's transition fro...
03/04/2026
Interra Systems has announced that Elite Media Technologies has selected its BATON file-based QC solution for media workflows. Elite Media Technologies speciali...
03/04/2026
Ateme has announced that Moldtelecom has deployed Ateme technologies across its streaming workflow, covering encoding, delivery, operations, and analytics.
Mol...
03/04/2026
Grass Valley will demonstrate Framelight X, its content management platform, at NAB Show 2026. The platform connects capture, ingest, editing, and publishing in...
03/04/2026
Encompass Digital Media and Techex have announced a cloud-native Master Control ...
03/04/2026
Live Vertical Video automatically track the action on the court via AI technology and delivers a fully optimized, 9 16 live feed for viewers...
03/04/2026
As the Illini make their first trip to college basketball's biggest stage si...
03/04/2026
After last summer's Softball National Championship victory and last week'...
03/04/2026
The University of Arizona's Men's Basketball team has only loss twice th...
03/04/2026
Eight games across four tournaments will be played in three venues; accommodatio...
03/04/2026
The Ottawa Senators and Bell Media have announced a long-term rights extension for regional Ottawa Senators games on TSN and RDS. TSN Radio 1200 remains the exc...
03/04/2026
Massive production in Phoenix is run out of Game Creek Video Flagship mobile uni...
03/04/2026
New York April 2, 2026 TelevisaUnivision, the world's leading Spanish-la...
03/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
Seventy-five students from Houston Community College's new two-year artificial intelligence program will attend NVIDIA's GTC conference next month.
