From Civil Services to Global Classrooms

Across classrooms and study desks around the world, students follow a familiar routine. They read chapters, attend lectures, and spend long evenings solving practice questions. Yet despite the effort, many end their study sessions with an unsettling question lingering in their minds: Did I truly understand this?

Doubts often arise at the very moment learning happens, during a lecture or in the middle of a practice set. But without immediate guidance, those questions remain unanswered. Students move forward anyway, carrying small gaps in understanding that gradually widen over time. It is a quiet struggle faced by millions of learners.

This challenge did not go unnoticed. In fact, it was observed independently by three individuals whose professional journeys unfolded in entirely different spaces like public administration, global academic research and elite university education. Their shared observations eventually converged into two educational initiatives: Prepzy and Global R-Hub.

One of the earliest threads of this story begins with Dr. S. Shivendu, whose career initially followed the path of public service. After graduating from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and the Indian Institute of Management Ahmadabad, he joined the Indian Administrative Service in the Bihar cadre - a career widely regarded as one of the most prestigious in India.

Yet even during his years in Government, Shivendu remained deeply drawn to intellectual inquiry and the pursuit of unanswered questions. That curiosity eventually led him to pursue a PhD in economics at the University of Southern California. In 2008, he made a decision that surprised many: stepping away from the IAS to pursue a full-time academic career.

Today, he serves as a tenured professor at the University of South Florida, where his research explores the economics of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and cybersecurity. Through years of teaching university students, he began noticing a recurring problem. Students were investing immense effort in their studies but often had no clear way to assess whether their understanding was actually improving.

“You cannot fix a gap if you cannot see it,” he observes.

While Shivendu was transitioning from governance to academia, another story rooted in public service was unfolding in Eastern India.

Mridula Sinha, who grew up in Ranchi, developed an early commitment to social development and education. After pursuing a Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Management, she worked in villages on initiatives aimed at empowering disadvantaged communities. Those experiences gave her a first-hand understanding of how deeply educational access and opportunity shape people’s lives.

She later joined the Indian Administrative Service and went on to serve for decades in various leadership roles within Government. Among her many assignments, she held the position of Principal Secretary for Higher Education and Technical Education in the Government of Jharkhand. Her work focused on strengthening educational institutions, expanding access, and improving the quality of higher education systems.

Alongside her administrative career, Sinha also pursued advanced academic exposure at institutions including Columbia University, Emory University, and the University of Southern California. These experiences allowed her to examine both Indian and International education systems from close quarters.

After retiring from public service, she continues to work in the development sector as a Public Policy Consultant, bringing decades of insight into education reform and governance. The third perspective came from a very different setting - a leading research university in the United States.

Arun Reddy, who grew up in Chandigarh, moved to the United States to study Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, graduating with university honors. During his time there, he noticed that many of his peers had already spent years exploring research interests before even entering university. For students coming from more traditional academic systems, such exposure was far less common.

“I realised several of my classmates had a head start,” Reddy recalls.

That realization stayed with him. Over the following years, he gained experience in technology management across both the United States and India and later completed an MBA in Finance from Hofstra University. Most recently, he served as Senior Manager at the National Institute for Smart Government, where he worked with Professor Shivendu on executive programs focused on artificial intelligence and machine learning applications in governance.

Despite their different professional journeys, the three founders had been observing the same underlying issue. Students were working incredibly hard, yet lacked tools that helped them clearly measure their learning progress. At the same time, opportunities to explore research often arrived much later than they should.

These insights led to the creation of Prepzy, a learning platform designed to transform exam preparation into a more structured and measurable process. By combining concept learning, practice questions, real-time evaluation, and instant doubt resolution, the platform allows students to identify learning gaps quickly and correct them before moving ahead.

Alongside this initiative, the founders launched Global R-Hub, a platform aimed at introducing students to research much earlier in their academic journeys. The program connects learners with PhD mentors across the world, enabling them to explore real research questions, collaborate with experts, and in some cases even publish their work in peer-reviewed journals.

Together, the two platforms reflect a broader vision of education in an era shaped by rapid technological change.

Views presented are personal.