Our vision at Enventure is to connect advanced degree students and young professionals with careers in the life science industry, not only in Houston but across all of Texas. Enventure has grown up and established its value in Houston, thanks in large part to our relationships with member institutions at the Texas Medical Center (TMC), the world’s largest healthcare ecosystem. In Houston, we’ve had the opportunity to build a network that encompasses all aspects of the healthcare industry from clinical health systems to research universities to biotech companies, and we continue to learn effective ways of using the full spectrum of career possibilities available to them.
After establishing our roots in Houston, we’ve expanded into San Antonio and have started exploring the possibility of a Dallas chapter as well. Our goal is to be Texas’ go-to career development resource for Ph.D., MD, MBA, and law students who are interested in building a career in life science innovation.
The success of our San Antonio chapter has served as proof of concept that Enventure’s mission has an inherent value relevant to healthcare innovation ecosystems beyond that of Houston. In the 9 years since the Enventure’s establishment, and recent expansion to San Antonio, we’ve been able to collaborate and build relationships with an impressive variety of locally-based life science companies including Stembiosys, Vascular Perfusion Solutions, INCELL, and WeInfuse (based in Dallas).
Our San Antonio team has done the important work of tailoring our programs to suit the needs of the local life science and biotech communities. San Antonio’s tech economy, for example, has a significant military sector, so the work done in our SA chapter has the opportunity to focus on career exploration opportunities for advanced degree students interested in the development of medical and biotech devices for military application. As Enventure seeks to grow and establish new chapters in other biotech hubs throughout Texas, this type of career development support tailored to the market needs of the specific area is going to be critical to our success and to the value we are able to provide.
Regardless of where Enventure operates or how many chapters we establish across the state, our underlying goal will always be to connect young professionals across all industries---including law, business, medicine, and research---to career opportunities in life science innovation that make sense for the regional market.
Our San Antonio team has worked hard to build relationships with medical and academic institutions as well as biotech companies that will allow them to establish connections and create opportunities in the San Antonio life science innovation community. The team has also taken what they’ve learned about the needs of the San Antonio community to develop new programming that not only adds value to Enventure’s role in San Antonio but also can be applied to the Houston community, enriching the existing programming there as well. These initiatives developed in San Antonio include Inspire, an open seminar series designed to introduce advanced degree students to the wide variety of career options within the life sciences; Case Interview Workshops, a fundamentals training and peer-to-peer mentoring program for aspiring consultants to practice case interview questions in a supportive space; and SciComm, Enventure’s blog and podcast.
Due to the pandemic, the EnventureSA team adapted these programs to a virtual setting and made them available to Enventure community members not just in San Antonio, but also in Houston and throughout Texas. The programming coming out of our EnventureSA has seen tremendous success so far, including one of the founding directors of the Case Interview Workshops, Justin Moroney, moving into a full-time position with a top-tier global consulting firm directly after completion of his Ph.D. in biomedical science.
While Enventure’s immediate vision is to expand to medical and academic life science communities across Texas, we believe our model can serve as a resource for life science hubs nationwide. Last year, the 2020-2021 UT System Student Advisory Council’s Career Success and Campus Wellness Committee, with Samantha Yee as vice-chair, conducted a survey of which 8 universities contributed and reported research on Career Success. They found that 1 institution out of the 8 lacked a central career success services department for advanced degree students, i.e. difficulty in finding the right contacts in the Medical School and School of Health Professionals. And in many cases, career services departments that did exist were out of touch with student needs and unable to offer guidance on careers outside of academia. By partnering with an organization like Enventure, career services departments can benefit from access to our extensive network of relationships with companies and medical institutions as well as our programming designed to help advanced degree students from all backgrounds understand the industry side of life science innovation and prepare for a career building the future of healthcare.
We are excited about the growth of our San Antonio community, and we are looking forward to expanding into additional biotech hubs across the state of Texas in order to continue opening doors for advanced degree students looking to build a career in life science innovation and connect life science companies with the business, law, clinical, and research talent they need.