We’re thrilled to welcome Dr. Gaurav Raina to Bloo’s Strategic Advisory Board.
A systems thinker, academic leader, and mentor to innovators, Dr. Raina brings deep expertise in networks, control theory, and large-scale systems design.
When I first met Dr. Gaurav Raina, I was struck by his ability to make complex technical concepts feel human and accessible. Here was a Cambridge mathematician, a Srinivasa Ramanujan Fellow, who had chosen to bring his knowledge and experience back to India and wanted to contribute to shaping the next generation of thinkers and doers at IIT Madras.
We were very impressed by his groundbreaking research on anomaly detection via deep learning, performance modelling of the Internet and modeling large scale engineering systems. His work wasn’t just academic; it demonstrated powerful approaches for understanding and building systems that can identify threats in real-time.
Leadership Roles & Impact
As a Professor of Electrical Engineering at IIT Madras, Dr. Raina specializes in data science, Artificial Intelligence, performance modeling of large-scale engineered systems, and modelling complex networked systems. His academic work also contributed to the foundation for his broader impact on India’s digital transformation.
Currently, he serves in key leadership positions with the National Health Authority, chairing initiatives for the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission and Unified Health Interface. He is also a mentor at MATH (Machine Learning & AI Technology Hub), helping to shape the future of AI innovation in India.
His influence extends deep into India’s financial technology sector. He is a former Chair of the Mobile Payment Forum of India (2017-2021), which is a body that played a key role in architecting the standards for mobile payments in India (IMPS and UPI; please see the short documentary:
UPI: the untold story. These systems now process billions of transactions monthly.
Dr. Raina’s commitment to bridging academia and industry is evident in his role as a founding member of an IIT-Madras incubated startup focused on bringing ML/AI solutions to industry applications. Through his engagement with national programs like ABDM and UHI, he continues to drive innovation in India’s digital infrastructure.
The Human Side of AI
One of the things I appreciate most about Dr. Raina’s approach is his emphasis on the human element in technology. He advocates for a liberal arts foundation in technical education, believing that understanding literature, music, and philosophy makes you a better engineer.
This perspective has influenced how we think about AI at Bloo. We’re not just building systems that detect threats; we’re building systems that understand context, that can explain their reasoning, and that work alongside human analysts rather than replacing them. His “Data Science & AI Demystified” series is a perfect example of how complex concepts can be made accessible without losing their depth.
Why This Matters for Our Customers
When I talk to customers about our approach to threat detection, I often find myself referencing principles that Dr. Raina has helped us understand. The importance of building systems that can handle scale without compromising performance. The need to design for real-world complexity rather than idealized scenarios. The value of making complex security concepts accessible to the people who need to use them.
His work on queuing and modeling Internet performance will influence how we architect our platform. His insights into anomaly detection have shaped our approach to identifying threats. And his experience with regulated industries has helped us understand the unique requirements of sectors and one of our areas of focus – healthcare and finance.
Looking Forward
As we continue to evolve our platform and expand into new markets, Dr. Raina’s guidance remains crucial. His ability to simultaneously see both the technical details and the bigger picture, how systems fit into the broader digital infrastructure, helps us make better decisions about where to focus our efforts.
What I’ve learned from working with him is that the best advisors don’t just provide answers; they help you ask better questions. They help you understand not just how to solve a problem, but why certain approaches work and others don’t. They help you build not just better products, but better thinking.
Dr. Raina has been that kind of advisor for Bloo. His influence extends far beyond the technical, it’s in how we think about problems, how we approach challenges, and how we build systems that serve real people in the real world.
The Coffee Bean Philosophy: A Lesson from Shri N Vaghul
Recently, Dr. Raina shared a profound lesson he learned from Shri N Vaghul about resilience and adaptability. The metaphor is simple yet powerful: When placed in hot water, an egg hardens while a coffee bean transforms the water itself. As Dr. Raina reflected in his Linkedin post Boiled egg or Coffee bean? Simple choices, profound consequences , it’s about choosing how we respond to adversity, whether we let it harden us or use it as an opportunity to create positive change.
This wisdom has deeply resonated with us and shaped what we learned about security at Bloo. In the face of evolving cyber threats and technical challenges, we don’t just fortify our defenses, we transform our entire approach to create better solutions. It’s a philosophy that aligns perfectly with cybersecurity, where adaptation and transformation are key to staying ahead of threats.