A New Beginning, A Bigger Vision: Welcoming the Master’s Cohort at RACE, REVA University
Some decisions quietly redefine a career. On Saturday, 31 October 2026, a room full of accomplished professionals made one of them.
RACE, the REVA Academy for Corporate Excellence, inaugurated four master’s cohorts: AI (Batch 13), Business Analytics (Batch 17), Cyber Security (Batch 17) and Cloud (Batch 6). Leaders from EY, Microsoft, Angel One, global industry and RACE shared one conviction: AI will accelerate your work, but only your experience and judgement can set its direction.
“Learning should be like breathing”: Dr. Shinu Abhi, RACE
After the ceremonial lamp lighting and a performance by REVA students, Dr. Shinu Abhi, Professor and Director at RACE, opened with a powerful idea: learning is not about credentials, it is about transformation.
“Learning should be like breathing. Can we stop breathing? We can’t. Can we stop learning?”
She challenged every learner to envision their 15-year horizon, to stop waiting to be “ready”, and to demonstrate measurable growth within six months. She also showcased what sets RACE apart: around 800 industry projects, a 112-seat Security Operations Centre, RIA the AI humanoid, 15+ senior industry mentors, and a Microsoft-certified master’s degree.
From experience to impact: Anjali Iyer, EY
Anjali Iyer, Director, Global Technology Consulting, Data, AI & Quantitative Modelling at EY, delivered the inaugural address. She asked how many people had sent AI-generated work to a customer without reviewing it. One hand went up, and that was her point.
“AI can help us move faster, but your experience and judgement will decide whether we are moving in the right direction.”
Careers, she said, are shifting from ladders to lattices, and from job descriptions to capability descriptions. Her framework was simple:
Of the six capabilities she sees defining the AI era (AI fluency, critical thinking, domain depth, storytelling, ethics and adaptability), only one is technical. She closed on governance: not a brake on AI, but the principles, policies, processes, people and platforms that make it trustworthy at scale.
“Enterprises have the AI. They are waiting for you.”: Poornima Prasad, Microsoft
Poornima Prasad, Enterprise AI GTM and Partnerships Leader at Microsoft, argued that the real gap is talent, not technology. Enterprises already own the models; they lack people who can deploy them well.
Using a bank as her example, she showed how one workflow needs three different models: a fast, low-cost model for KYC checks, a policy-grounded model for staff queries, and a deep-reasoning model for credit memos. Choosing well takes human domain expertise. Her rule: define the outcome before the tool.
“A cheap agent that no one trusts is the most expensive tool you can use in your organisation.”
Her central message was the learning loop. Models change every week; your learning is what lasts. “You can offload a task, even a job, but you can never offload your learning.”
“What if AI takes over the world?”: Sridhar Govardhan, Angel One
Sridhar Govardhan, Group CISO at Angel One, recalled bank employees in the 1990s striking against computerising banks. Those who resisted change, he noted, are now “happily retired”. His view: “AI is not going to replace you. AI will make you super intelligent.”
He also showed the darker side. Attackers now use AI to steal crypto keys within hours and to scan whole sectors for forgotten APIs. In one Hong Kong case, a finance employee joined a video call where the “CFO” and senior colleagues were all deepfakes, and he transferred about 25 million dollars. His prescription: give every AI agent an identity, let AI inform while humans decide, and settle accountability upfront.
A special visit from the Chancellor
REVA’s Founder Chancellor, Dr. P. Shyama Raju, joined the morning and was introduced as “the youngest person in the room” (he is 78). He asked the new cohorts for honest, critical feedback and invited them to share their expertise across REVA’s 18 schools. Registrar Dr. M. Dhanamjaya welcomed everyone into the “REVA family” and asked them to serve as ambassadors to younger students.
“Thrive, don’t just survive”: Dr. Ram Kumar
Dr. Ram Kumar, a cybersecurity leader at a global automotive company, described today’s BANI world: brittle, anxious, non-linear and incomprehensible. In it, every skill has an expiry date.
His answer was fluid learning: pick up adjacent skills quickly, connect disciplines and stop saying “that’s not my job”. He urged everyone to build a T-shaped profile, deep in one domain and broad across many. His practical playbook included certifications, home labs, hackathons and mentors. His simplest tip: set learning goals every 90 days and score yourself honestly.
Alumni fireside chat: “from confidence zero to 200 percent”
Two RACE alumni showed the new cohorts what the journey can deliver.
Praveena V joined the AI programme unsure how she would “survive” the GenAI wave. After graduating in 2023, she joined EY and is now a Director there. Her advice: master the fundamentals, think like an architect, and ask for interviews as soon as you finish a module.
Pavithran Ganesan, an OT cybersecurity specialist, moved from instrumentation engineering into cyber through RACE. For his capstone he brought a real PLC machine into the lab to show how industrial attacks can be detected and defended. The work earned a published patent, and he is now pursuing a PhD at REVA. His advice: start your capstone thinking on day one, and never miss a lab.
Meet the Mentors
Sandeep Vijayaraghavan and Dr. J. B. Simha introduced the mentoring model.
Sandeep, Chief Mentor for Cyber Security and Cloud, brings 25 years in cybersecurity. He first came to REVA seven and a half years ago to set up a Security Operations Centre, and a single conversation with Dr. Shinu led to the launch of RACE’s cybersecurity programme. He traced how security has evolved: from filtering IP addresses, to controlling access by user identity, to today’s challenge of non-human identities, the AI agents that act autonomously once a user gives them a prompt.
Dr. J. B. Simha, a senior RACE mentor who also trains enterprise teams such as Indian Oil’s R&D unit, offered simple advice for the early modules: follow your mentor closely, master the fundamentals, and only then begin building on your own.
“It’s not a challenge of adopting AI. It’s a challenge of governing, managing and securing the AI ecosystem.”
With 50+ mentors, each learner will choose one to guide their capstone over four to six months.
Your master’s roadmap
Dr. Shinu closed the day with the programme roadmap: around 60–70 Saturdays and 15–16 modules, taken one at a time.
- Build foundations with hands-on labs.
- Create something in every module for your portfolio.
- Earn global certifications built into the programme.
- Deliver an end-to-end capstone, a complete system, not an isolated fix.
- Pursue placement continuously, not just at the end.
Five lessons to carry forward
- Learning is like breathing. Stop, and your growth stops with it.
- Impact outweighs tenure. Experience + AI fluency + judgement is the new equation.
- You can never outsource your learning. Models change; your learning loop endures.
- Govern AI before you scale it. Identity, guardrails and human accountability are non-negotiable.
- Be T-shaped and fluid. Go deep in one domain, broad across many, and plan every 90 days.
Two years from now, these cohorts will look back on 31 October 2026 as the day they chose to grow, and to lead. Welcome to the RACE family. The journey begins now.
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