Profiles of Innovation

The entrepreneurs of Community Cloth are knitting a better future

Entrepreneurship in Houston takes all on sorts of dimensions. At The Community Cloth, a nonprofit micro-enterprise program, refugees from Burma, Sudan, Iraq and other countries strive to become self-supporting by making and selling hand-crafted items.

"I consider myself a social entrepreneur, meaning I'm trying to utilize entrepreneurship skills, concepts and spirit to be able to help the greater community," says co-founder Quynh-Anh McMahan. "So although there's not a profit at the end of the day for pursing work like The Community Cloth, there's definitely a social profit."

About two years ago, McMahan and a group of volunteers spearheaded a meeting of refugees and service providers that came up with the idea of the micro-enterprise to help them become self-sufficient.

"The ladies are taught basic business skills as well as product development," says co-founder Roxanne McCauley Paiva. "We do this by taking them shopping to the Galleria where they are able to see the latest trends and styles that are coming up for this season. We invite volunteers who know how to knit and crochet to teach different techniques. We have a year-and-a-half worth of sales under our belt to see what the market is looking for."

Handmade indigenous items like woven bags, knitted scarves and embroidered linens are sold at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, Kuhl-Linscomb, Brazos Bookstore and at in-home Tupperware-style parties where the artisans tell their stories, which has a special resonance to McMahan, whose family fled Vietnam and settled in America.

"We personally knew and experienced the struggles of escaping a war, coming to a new land and starting over. That's why I have developed such a heart for working with this community. I like sharing my story with the women that we work with," she says.

In this continuing series, Profiles of Innovation, Paiva and McMahan tell videographers Douglas Newman and John Carrithers about their passion for the work of The Community Cloth and why it is making a difference.

Best in class

2 Houston schools lead 2025 rankings for top entrepreneurship programs

Rice University, aerial, campus, buildings

Photo courtesy of Rice University

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Rice University and the University of Houston have topped The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur’s lists of the best graduate and undergraduate schools for entrepreneurship studies for 2025.

Neither school is a stranger to the prestigious national rankings.

Rice ranks first in the graduate category for the sixth consecutive year, and UH ranks first in the undergraduate category for the sixth consecutive year.

“At Rice Business, our students learn both inside and outside the classroom, drawing on our strong industry and community connections in Houston and beyond,” says Peter Rodriguez, dean of Rice’s Jones Graduate School of Business, in a release. “With small class sizes and tailored programs, we aim to equip our students with the skills to create new ventures and excel in a fast-changing business landscape.”

UH President Renu Khator praises the ranking as recognition for the impact of the Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship at the C.T. Bauer College of Business.

“This program is a tremendous asset not only to the University of Houston and the Bauer College of Business, but also to the city of Houston, where entrepreneurship fuels both socioeconomic mobility and economic growth,” Khator says in a release. “We are proud to see the impact of this program reverberate throughout our community.”

Rankings for The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur’s 2025 lists were based on a survey of administrators at nearly 300 schools in the U.S., Canada, and Europe that offer entrepreneurship studies. Among the more than 40 factors used for the rankings were academic programs, faculty credentials, mentorship opportunities, and alumni entrepreneurship ventures.

The only other school in Texas that made either top-10 was the University of Texas at Austin.

The top 10 schools on the list of 50 best graduate schools for entrepreneurship studies in 2025 are:

1. Rice University
2. University of California-Los Angeles
3. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
4. Washington University in St. Louis
5. Babson College
6. University of Washington
7. University of Texas at Austin
8. University of Virginia
9. Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands
10. University of South Florida

The top 10 schools on the list of 50 best undergraduate schools for entrepreneurship studies in 2025 are:

1. University of Houston
2. University of Texas at Austin
3. Babson College
4. University of Washington
5. Washington University in St. Louis
6. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
7. University of Maryland-College Park
8. Miami University of Ohio
9. Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico
10. Northeastern University

The spirit of entrepreneurship is strong in Houston. The city recently ranked No. 7 on a list of the of the 10 best U.S. cities for entrepreneurs to live.

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The story originally was published on our sister site, InnovationMap.

best schools entrepreneurs entrepreneurship rankings rice rice university uh university of houston

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