Yes, you have completed your journey in this university as a graduate, as a master's, and as a PhD holder. Now shortly you will be taking your degrees and I know you will reminisce all the good things that you have experienced on campus.
May I request the parents to sit down and clear the aisle for the students to walk in. Please sit down. You can see your ward walk on the screen. Yes, and I think when you take a picture on the screen it is closer. You can see your ward walk on the screen. Please be seated.
For the parents who are just walking in, please note there are facilities on either side of the venue. You can pick up water, you can use the facilities whenever you need to. As the students are still walking in, I request the parents to be seated. It is a long procession. We have many students graduating today.
Welcome. This is an announcement only for the students. We request the parents who are standing up to kindly sit down because this is disturbing the seating plan arrangements for the students. Request the parents to kindly sit down.
We will now read out each segment and tell you which branch is supposed to be on the right and the left. Can I request the students to kindly pay attention? Branch and the side will be read out. With the row, please go to that particular row.
Graduates, if your sticker is missing on the chair, please look at the adjoining seats for the roll numbers and sit accordingly, please.
Students, if your chair is missing a sticker, please look at the adjoining chair and find your roll number, please.
I thank all the graduating students who came here and who are settling down to please do it fast because we are awaiting the arrival of the dignitaries.
As we await the arrival of the dignitaries, take time to reminisce the journey of your ward. Dear parents, with a sense of fulfilment, bless them for their accomplishments because you as parents, grandparents, and well-wishers have invested in their lives as much that it is a proud moment for you too to celebrate along with their success.
To all our graduating students, Mahindra University wishes you a grand success and a bright future. This is the culmination of your hard work and dedication. Enjoy this moment. Dear students, as you look around you will find your classmates who share the same joy of accomplishment. What a great moment to cherish collectively. This moment will take you long in your journey. This will be a reminder for the steps of accomplishment and fulfilment.
I request everyone seated here to put your phones on silent mode.
Today also marks the inauguration of BEST Center. BEST stands for Bajaj Engineering Skills Training Center, which has been inaugurated a few minutes ago by the Chief Guest and the Guest of Honor along with the Chancellor Shri Anand Mahindra.
May I request all the graduating students and the parents and everyone seated in this venue to please rise up as the academic procession enters the convocation venue.
Thank you. Please be seated. Honorable Chief Guest Shri Rajiv Bajaj, Honorable Guest of Honor Chancellor Pradeep Khosla, Honorable Chancellor of Mahindra University Shri Anand Mahindra, Honorable Vice Chancellor Dr. Yajulu Meduri, esteemed dignitaries on stage, distinguished guests, parents, graduating students, colleagues, and my dear friends, a very good morning to one and all. I, Salomi Benhar, a professor at the Ecole Centrale School of Engineering, welcome you all to Mahindra University's fifth annual convocation, 2026.
Ladies and gentlemen, before we proceed with this ceremony, may I request you all to please rise for the national anthem.
Thank you. Please be seated. Today marks the grand finale of one great chapter and the launchpad for your next big adventure. Standing here, I don't just see an esteemed gathering, I see a powerhouse of grit, long hours, and untapped genius. Did you face doubt, anxiety, and sleepless nights along the way? Absolutely. But you conquered every single hurdle because you refused to give up. This ceremony isn't just about a degree. It is a celebration of your evolution, your family's unwavering support, and your decision to forge ahead when walking away was the easier choice.
Aristotle said it best. I quote: 'The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet,' unquote. Your hard work has officially paid off. Congratulations on your victory. With the sweet fruit of your success now realised, let us symbolise the bright future that lies ahead. We will now move on to our traditional lamp lighting ceremony. I now invite our esteemed dignitaries on stage to kindly step forward to light the ceremonial lamp.
As light represents wisdom, let this flame illuminate our minds and banish ignorance. May we carry this radiance outward, brightening our lives and becoming a beacon of hope for everyone we meet.
I now invite Miss Sahasra Kandam to present the Saraswati Vandana. Sahasra is a second-year Computational Business Analytics student.
Thank you, Sahasra, for the melodic invocation.
May I now request the Honorable Chancellor Shri Anand Mahindra to felicitate the Honorable Chief Guest Shri Rajiv Bajaj.
I request the Chancellor to now felicitate the Honorable Chancellor Pradeep Khosla, University of California San Diego.
I request the Honorable Chancellor to declare the Convocation 2026 open.
I hereby declare the Convocation 2026 open.
Hey guys, come on! Big round of applause, come on, come on! Can't be relaxing like this. Let's do it today! Mr. Rajiv Bajaj, Managing Director, Bajaj Auto Limited, our Chief Guest for today; Chancellor Pradeep Khosla, UC San Diego, USA, our Guest of Honor; our very own Chancellor, Mr. Anand Mahindra; distinguished dignitaries on the dais; esteemed guests, parents, media, and our dear young graduating students. On behalf of the entire fraternity of Mahindra University, I welcome you all to the fifth annual convocation.
It is said that an educational institution stands tall on the rock-solid foundation of its students. For us at Mahindra University, students are multi-faceted in the present, visionary leaders in the making, and bold entrepreneurs and innovators driving the future. Today I take this opportunity to present to you, Chancellor sir, 139 graduating students who are ready to serve the society with zeal and their intellectual and institutional capabilities.
As we enter academic year 2026, Mahindra University student strength stands at an estimated 7,200, supported by 350 plus internationally acclaimed faculty and around 250 plus support staff. To mark a strong foothold in the research front, faculty have around 1,300 research publications in internationally reputed journals and peer-reviewed conferences, over 90 patents, and externally funded projects from national and international government agencies and industries.
We have made rapid strides in incubating the dreams of young innovators with the establishment of the Atal Incubation Center under the AIM of NITI Aayog. In academic year 2025, the university commenced academic operations. The School of Hospitality Management focused on specialization in the areas of hotel, event, leisure, and restaurant management. Recently, the first phase of the culinary and beverage complex has started functioning, marking a significant milestone in hospitality education across India. Further, we added new programs in BBA Infrastructure Management and a post-graduate program in Cyber Security in association with Macquarie University, Australia.
Today we will have 22 doctor scholars receiving the degrees, compared to 23 over the past three convocations. All three have successfully defended the research work from the School of Management, a first for the school. Applause, guys, come on! We are extremely proud of our PhD candidates and look forward to the continued success.
I am pleased to share that we have two focused collaborative agreements with UC San Diego for enhancing MU capabilities in AI and with Virginia Tech for research projects in the areas of smart cities, biosensors, computing, net-zero infrastructure, and advanced materials. These partnerships reflect a shared commitment to tackling global challenges through collaborative cross-disciplinary research. This marks a significant step in strengthening our international research footprint and fostering innovation of global relevance.
Additionally, we are building on our relationships with Monash University and ANU in Australia; Kagawa, Hischima, and Kyushu University in Japan; and Singapore University of Technology and Design. And we are in active discussion with Nagoya University, Japan, for an academic-oriented linkage. MU's industrial linkages span Airbus, Apollo Healthcare, NVIDIA, Dr. Reddy's Labs to our very own Tech Mahindra and Mahindra Group.
Students themselves find themselves in various extracurricular activities along with their academic curriculum. The initiatives taken by students over the years have resulted in high-standard annual events like Aether and Aero. This year, in 2025, we also hosted Roots and Campus, reimagining Indian folk and performing traditions. Students are also motivated to take part in competitions held in different colleges and prove their mettle on various platforms.
Our graduates opted for higher education or industry positions, and we have students who keep going to top campuses and joining top industries like Salesforce in relatively short spans. And inception, MU students have proved their mettle by securing internship opportunities, higher education invites, and bagging great career opportunities globally.
It is well recognised that to make an academic institution great and globally competitive, research should be an integral component in addition to quality teaching. Accordingly, we at MU are placing more emphasis on applied research. I wish all graduating students all the very best for the future. Do well, keep the MU flag flying high, and keep remembering us. We are always there for you. Thank you once again, ladies and gentlemen, for gracious presence and patient hearing. Thank you.
Thank you, sir, for presenting such a comprehensive and meticulous report. May I now call upon the Honorable Chancellor of Mahindra University, Shri Anand Mahindra, to address the gathering.
Dignitaries, members of the faculty, proud parents and family, ladies and gentlemen, and most of all, the graduating class of 2026. Before I begin, I want to acknowledge two distinguished individuals who honor us with their presence today. I am especially delighted that our Chief Guest today is Rajiv Bajaj.
I have known Rajiv since he was a young man, and actually, I was going to say when we were both young men, but sadly, being almost a decade older than him, that would have been a blatant lie. I must say that over all the years, Rajiv, I have come to associate two qualities with you: innovation and global leadership.
When it comes to innovation, Rajiv has shown us that the best way to honor a great legacy is not simply to preserve it, but to reinvent it. And from the structural transformation of Bajaj Auto to reviving the iconic Chetak for the electric age, he has consistently looked ahead rather than behind. He also built a deeply respected global brand for our country across multiple continents. From Africa to Latin America and Asia, the name Bajaj has become synonymous with high-quality and reliable mobility.
Closer to home, as you will know, he continues to invest heavily in the future of education and skill-building. And I want all of you to know that he has very generously established the Bajaj Engineering and Skills Training Center right here at Mahindra University.
This morning it was a particular pleasure for me to see him inaugurate this wonderful new facility. And the center is, fittingly, abbreviated as the BEST Center. Now, this naming, in fact, validates another skill that Rajiv has, which is building brand leadership. I think you know very well, Rajiv, that by naming it the Best Center, you are automatically going to take leadership on the campus and give all our other engineering centers of excellence severe inferiority complex.
But seriously, we are truly grateful and even more excited with the prospect of your expanding into new verticals of excellence at this university.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are equally fortunate to have with us as our Guest of Honor, Dr. Pradeep Khosla, Chancellor of UC San Diego. Now, Pradeep is not only a distinguished academic leader, but also an internationally respected engineer and institution builder. Under his leadership, UC San Diego has strengthened its position as one of the world's leading research universities, reflecting his deep belief in the power of innovation and education to shape the future.
But in addition to the very signal achievements, I have to say I am even more admiring of his warmth, his humility, and his generosity in sharing his knowledge and experience. Pradeep, thank you for meeting with our board yesterday and giving us so much insight into your vision of the future of universities and higher education. Please join me in a big round of applause for both of them.
Now, of course, today above all is the day for the graduating class of 2026. But I know you will not disagree when I say that your achievement belongs in no small measure to the parents and family who have supported you through every step of this journey. So, before we go further, may I request all the parents and families to please stand up? All the parents and families, please. Please give them a thundering round of applause.
Thank you very much. Now, I have a confession to make. That last week I was trying to think about what I should talk to you about in my remarks here today. And so I tried a thought experiment. I sat down and tried to project myself to jump into the mind of a 22-year-old graduating today. And I have to tell you, I barely survived that experience.
Because it sort of makes you dizzy to think of what your generation has been through in just the last five to seven years of your life. Think about it for a minute. You've grown up in a world where once-in-a-lifetime seems to happen every year. You lived through a pandemic that upended your studies and your daily life.
You're witnessing wars that are reshaping the global order. You've seen climate change move from prediction to reality. And you no longer really have a clear answer to the question of what is truth. Social media is reshaping society. Artificial intelligence is doing many of the things that we thought once only human beings could do.
And so the whole old comfortable doctor, lawyer, engineer, IAS, MBA, the old, all these tropes — I call them tropes now — no longer hold. New jobs appear almost overnight as quickly as old ones disappear. And just when you begin to think that you understood the rules of the game, the game itself changes.
So I came out of this thought experiment feeling dazed, destabilised, and almost in the need of a full-time psychological therapist — perhaps more than one therapist. Because please understand, for your parents' generation, the future looked like a very well laid-out road.
But you, on the other hand, are trying to find your footing just as the ground is shaking under you. So I came to the conclusion that only a superhero generation can navigate this kind of emerging universe.
And I started wondering what sort of superhero does your generation need? And to be honest, my first thought went to the X-Men. In a way, their story is not really about superpowers. It's actually about evolution. Faced with a world unlike the one they knew, they developed new abilities.
And their powers weren't given to them. They didn't train or inherit them. Their powers came from living through something — living through an experience that changed their genetic code. They adapted because the world demanded it. So the X-Men are proof that extreme conditions don't just test you, they can transform you. And they can hand you an ability you wouldn't otherwise have had.
So I would argue that your generation has, in fact, gone through something similar — not biologically. But if you look at it, the pandemic, the pace of technological change, the collapse of old certainties — these have indeed mutated the way you think.
Like the X-Men, you developed capabilities previous generations never imagined. Comfort with ambiguity, collaborating with machines, familiarity with constant change. So let's call that your mutant power: your ability to evolve and to thrive in conditions, frankly, would paralyse generations before you.
The X-Men become heroes because extraordinary circumstances evoke extraordinary ability. But on the other hand, our Indian philosophic tradition takes a very different perspective.
Swami Vivekananda said, 'All power is within you.' And he emphasised that extraordinary powers are not gifts bestowed on just a fortunate few. But he said those powers lie within us. They are already within us. But they lie dormant, they lie sleeping, until life calls them forth.
And the qualities that you will need most in life — most — courage, resilience, compassion — he said they are already part of you, waiting for the moment when life invites them to emerge.
So the greatest power you have, in my belief, is your humanity. And we talk so much today about what artificial intelligence can do that I think we forget that there are things only human beings can provide: ethics, humility, compassion, curiosity, moral purpose.
Yes, your powers will arise, of course, from your ability to evolve. But they will also arise from who you really are, from your inner self. And how you place your powers and your moral compass at the service of a purpose larger than yourself.
For a generation about to be handed extraordinary technological power, that may be the most useful lesson. So I urge you to marry the two approaches: one modern, one traditional. And I believe that you will discover the superpower for your generation writes itself.
The X-Men story demonstrates that evolution occurs because of external circumstances. But Vivekananda teaches us that our greatest strengths are already within us, waiting to be directed towards a worldly purpose. And the future needs both.
Both the ability to evolve and the ability to be deeply human. The dual capacity to evolve outwardly and to awaken inwardly — that is your real superpower. And I am confident that it is a superpower which you already possess.
So from tomorrow, the students, all of you, your path will lead beyond these gates, beyond these portals. And my best wishes go to you, our band of superheroes. Congratulations once again, and may your superpowers serve you well. Thank you.
Thank you, sir, for reiterating about the two approaches, that is the modern and traditional, to take our graduating students forward.
Thank you for reminding us about the qualities like courage, resilience, compassion, and curiosity with a moral purpose to guide our graduating students.
May I now call upon the Vice Chancellor of Mahindra University to introduce the Guest of Honor, Chancellor Pradeep Khosla.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to introduce my colleague, my friend, Pradeep K. Khosla, who became UC San Diego's Chancellor on August 1, 2012, and he has remained there helping UC San Diego's leading campus with more than 46,000 students today. Today, as Chancellor, Mahindra has said, San Diego is recognised as one of the top 20 research universities in the world.
Pradeep initiated and led UC San Diego's first-ever strategic plan and the ambitious 10-year two-billion-dollar campaign for UC San Diego. Pradeep has significantly expanded college access and affordability for underrepresented populations, initiated interdisciplinary research initiatives to foster collaboration and solve societal challenges, and strengthened university and community relationships and partnerships.
He is an internationally renowned electrical and computer engineer. Pradeep previously served as professor and dean of the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, where he spent the majority of his earlier career. He is an alumnus, just like I am, of IIT Kharagpur, graduated in 1980, and then did his master's and PhD at Carnegie Mellon.
Let me take this opportunity to welcome Pradeep Khosla and request him to deliver his address. Pradeep.
