From Curiosity to Career Growth: An Oracle AI Certification Journey

Join us for an inspiring conversation with private equity advisor Jeffrey Malcolm as he shares how Oracle AI certification has transformed his career, family, and approach to business. Discover the real-world impact and opportunities that come from upskilling with Oracle’s leading AI training programs.

 

AI Foundations: https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/learning-path/become-an-oci-ai-foundations-associate-2025/147781

Oracle University Learning Community: https://education.oracle.com/ou-community

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/oracle-university/

X: https://x.com/Oracle_Edu

 

Special thanks to Arijit Ghosh, Anna Hulkower, Kris-Ann Nansen, and the OU Studio Team for helping us create this episode.

 

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Episode Transcript:

 

00:00

Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast, the first stop on your cloud journey. During this series of informative podcasts, we’ll bring you foundational training on the most popular Oracle technologies. Let’s get started!

00:26

Lois: Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast. I'm your host, Lois Houston, and I'm joined today by Jeffrey Malcolm, Operating Adviser working in the private equity space, to talk about how Oracle AI certifications have impacted his professional and personal life. Hi Jeffrey, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today. Our conversation actually stems from a fascinating discussion we had at AI World, Oracle's annual user conference. There you shared your journey to becoming Oracle AI certified... How that process not only shifted your perspective on emerging technologies, but also influenced the way you work, interact with colleagues and clients, and even how you encourage continued learning in your own family. I'm really excited to dive deeper into your story and explore the value and real world benefits of certification in today's AI-driven landscape.

01:20

Jeffrey: Uh Lois, first of all, thank you for having me. Um, it was fantastic running into your teammates at AI World. It was amazing. You know, for for me, you know, as we go through this AI journey with my portfolio companies, I'm constantly looking at what are the new things out there? How can I get myself enabled? So, excited that we're having this conversation today.

01:42

Lois: That's great. So, let's start at the beginning. Before your certifications, what was your initial reaction when you heard about Oracle's OCI and AI certification programs? Were you immediately interested or was there hesitation?

Jeffrey: I was skeptical. You know, I was skeptical about OCI capabilities as you guys didn't have much market penetration at the time. You know, in my technology career, I built several enterprise applications on AWS, Azure, and GCP. However, OCI Cloud was new and my wife Kay Malcolm, who you know, kept raving at home over and over about OCI, that the cloud was faster, it was more secure and cost friendly. All of which this thing that I'm hearing are appealing to me as a CIO because that's something that I need to control at my companies that I'm working with.

Lois: Right.

Jeffrey: So because even though I was skeptical I was like if all of these things are appealing to her, I'm going to go ahead, I'm going to take the certification, I'm going to confirm all of these allegations that she's making to just make sure that, you know, it's actually true. And I was pleasantly surprised once I pulled the covers back.

02:59

Lois: So, you mentioned that your wife actually encouraged you to sign up for the free OCI Foundations training. Can you tell me a little bit more about that experience and how it influenced your decision to continue learning?

Jeffrey: When she took the OCI test, at first she passed with a 95% score. So, you know, that encouraged me to just, you know, to take it as as as informative as I can. And to be honest, I wanted to beat her score because, you know, we're competitive. Um, upon passing and seeing the high quality of the candidate, you know, of the content. Uh, it was just hard for me to keep this internally. I wanted to share it with my network. I wanted to kind of see if there's others that could benefit from it. But you know my my initial piece was how can I beat her? And when I was able to date the score I I did score a 96 and beat her and I started sharing it with my network. And what happened Lois it was amazing. You know we we found a a cohort of individuals right around 50 who wanted to start taking the similar course. We were like hey this is something that's amazing. We had individuals who were teachers. We had individuals who had work in the corrections facility. We had plumbers. We had electrician. And they were all skeptical about taking this highly technical course. But we said, "Hey, it's self-paced. It's something that you can do and you can really benefit your career." So at the end, we had 50 people who took it. Of the 50, we had 30 brave souls who went ahead and took the certification. Um, and of the 30, we had a 24 people who passed. That's almost a 90% pass rate.

Lois: Yeah. 

Jeffrey: And it was so successful, we actually had one individual who shared their news. He was able to get a new position where he became a technical project manager and 3x his salary. So, it was just amazing to watch how people were brave enough to take this content, how OCI did an amazing job of making it self-paced and absorbable and then people got the certification, we published it on LinkedIn, and people actually got jobs. So, it was actually quite quite impressive.

05:24

Lois: That's an incredible story. So, you didn't just become a believer, you actually went and built an application on OCI, right? What was the project and how did your new skills play a role in making that happen?

Jeffrey: That's that's a funny story. So at the time I was doing the uh the OCI training. I was building a mobile native application for a startup who was at the time looking to impact climate change. They were socially conscious enterprise dedicated to bring human-centered tools to individuals to live a better life and protect our environment. You know, the the main focus was how can they create an application that had no ads, only information, and provide a tool that would allow people to do joyful actions such as recycling, such as, you know, um looking at how you can lower your power consumption in your home, moving from plastics away from your home and just not consuming that much plastic. So we really wanted to gamify that and build an application that could do that. Uh my training gave me the confidence that as I was architecting the solution to say I needed to build something scalable and secure and full transparency at the time my myself and the rest of my development team was looking at completely AWS solutions.

From this training I was like no if we really want something secure and scalable, the Oracle Database specifically Autonomous Database is it and we switched we built a multicloud solution across Azure um AWS and um GCP as well as OCI OCI had our backend and we built our application to leverage it specifically because after taking a training I was convinced that the backend needed to on Oracle Database specifically Autonomous Database. So it helped the the application had been running now for 3 years no issues um from a scalability standpoint and it's been fantastic for us.

07:34

Lois: Well that's great. That's a great story to uh to talk about how you leveraged your training and into something that actually made a difference in your job. So let's talk a little bit about your AI certification. You've described the AI foundations training that you took from Oracle University as demystifying. So tell me about some of the biggest takeaways for you. How did it shift your understanding of what AI really is and how it can be used?

Jeffrey: That's a great point. Um you know in the last two three years AI has just been the talk of the town and specifically in my role as an advisor to private equity companies, I'm constantly being asked how can AI impact the top line? How can AI the bottom line and help us realize the multiple or investment pieces to exit um our our different companies? My background whenever I look at a problem I need to understand the guts of it and at the time there was all of these myths and and and confusion and scared to be honest around AI. So coming from an engineering background at MIT, one of the things MIT taught me is I need to look under the covers to truly understand something from a technology standpoint. Do my due diligence before sharing best practices with my portfolio companies that I'm working with. So that made me take on this challenge to say hey I need to understand what's the difference between machine learning, deep learning. What are the different you know kind of you know neural networks out there? When do you want to use it? So the AI foundation training that Oracle was offering was compelling to me to the point that I had had great success on the OCI's piece I'm like let me take this on. So that's what really started my journey back in January of 2023 um this was just a few months after the release of ChatGPT and I really wanted to understand how AI can like skyrocket and help our companies you know drive drive value. So that's what made me take it on. I wanted to understand what's the difference between RNN you know recurrent neural networks convolutional um neural networks and what's the best business case that our companies can use? What's the best time to use a vector database? Why is it important? Why is it needed for AI solution? I wanted to be able to articulate the difference between a RAG and Agentic AI workflow to our companies so that's really was the impass of as to why I wanted to take on this piece and why I wanted to do uh the AI foundational training.

10:08

Lois: And your journey didn't stop with you and Kay, right? Your sons are both Oracle AI-certified as well as I understand it. So, tell me a little bit about that. What inspired them?

Jeffrey: So our poor boys um you know we have two boys you know both are in college uh you know and one full transparency is a computer science major at at Georgia Tech. The other one is doing a biology major at um Kennesaw State. In our household, we believe in technology and and we believe anyone can look at it. So, after getting a better understanding of AI and realizing AI is really going to impact every aspect of our our society and our industry, we said we should absolutely have our boys do this. Well, of course, with any kind of young kids, they're going to be hesitant. So um we we had to really incentivize them you know for you know for my for our youngest you know who was not you know been exposed to this technology, he was starting his new business and he wanted to learn and for our oldest being at Georgia Tech he was in that computer science major this was going to help him secure some summer internship. So what we did was to incentivize them we had to turn off the Wi-Fi and so the Wi-Fi could only be on if they were doing the certification and and full transparency after I would say a weekend and like 3 days they were able to complete the course and truly um pass and understand on a foundational level like what's the difference between RAG and Agents? What's the difference between you know RNN and CNN? What are neural networks and what's deep learning the machine learning? For my oldest, who was in computer science, it helped him secure a summer internship because he was able to talk about in a very clear way that he understood AI. And then he was also able to show his um his certification and that helped him to secure an internship with Oracle on the OCI team being a software developer. And to be honest, he's going into his third summer where he's going to be at Oracle um coming this next summer in 2026. So, it's been beneficial. I tell people like this is something that you should absolutely do and um we encourage our friends and we tell the story about our boys because it's it's personal. We show that anyone can do it.

12:35

Lois: That's that's an awesome story. And the whole family is AI certified. That's great. So, you mentioned that you've been sharing your experience with your friends and your colleagues and neighbors. What are some of the common misconceptions or fears that you encounter when you're talking about AI with people? How do you help them understand what it means for their careers and for their lives?

Jeffrey: Um, no, it's a great question. You know, a lot of people I talk to still think AI is either going to replace them or that it's too technical for them to ever understand.

Lois: Right.

Jeffrey: And the fear usually comes from not knowing where to start. Um, I tell them that AI is really just a tool and and and learning the basics helps you to see where it fits into your work life. And and once they understand that it's it's here to help, not to replace them, the conversation shifts and become, oh, okay, now how can I become more knowledgeable so I can be less fearful and identify opportunities? So really, I've been having conversation to say, look, it is not something that's here to replace you. It is a tool and it's a tool that really once you understand how you can use it at your job or in your school work or in where you volunteer, it can really drive automation and speed and allow you to do your job much better.

Lois: Yeah, that's so true. And the knowledge understanding is so powerful. It really does change people's perspective from being fearful to being excited about the possibilities with AI. 

14:13

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14:34

Lois: So tell me a little bit about uh how in your private equity work um I know you interact with a wide variety of clients. How does this knowledge about Oracle's AI uh technology and having the certification empower you to have conversations and build trust with your clients?

Jeffrey: The biggest value I've received from getting the Oracle AI certification is that it gives me clear and practical foundations for talking to people about what AI is and what it's not. Let's be honest, there's a lot of hype out there about AI and there's a lot of hype and fear that is unproven. You know, in in my work with private equity, clients want to know what's the real, what's possible, what's worth our investment. You know is this something that we should really look at. So when I can explain AI concepts, agentic workflow, you know, neural networks and one is important, you know, what neural networks are better for vision capabilities, what neural networks are better for audio capabilities, what neural networks are just better for for text. Right? When I can really go down to those simple terms and connect with them on the operating challenges that that companies is facing, then I have tangible case studies that I can help work with my companies on that will build credibility and this hype and fear kind of starts to subside and go away.

So with that, you know, when when when working with my private equity companies, I don't want to just do something just because it's the hype. We we really need to make sure that whatever we doing can drive growth and drive IBIDA growth so that we could realize our investment thesis. So this certification really helped me to just ground it in the ways that I could have real conversations with our companies about what are the activities that are going to drive growth, what are the activities that's going to be efficient, what are the activities that are going to have value creation for our company. and it's been something that you know has really been helpful.

So, another thing I wanted to share is Kay and I have been working with not only, you know, digging it to enterprises, but I want to take it to universities and we've been working with her mother's alma mater, Alabama State, which is a historically black college and university, to help them get on Oracle AI and then get their foundation going because we want to take this down to the college level and help to drive this and offer it. Through that interaction, they've reached out to the city of uh Montgomery and they want to work with the public schools to start getting the school system to start becoming AI foundation um certified and understand how AI can evolve in everything that you do. So, we've been working with them. We actually had a quick event here that Oracle did um at here in Atlanta and they were able to attend and see some of the application and we're hoping to just continue this. So it it's not something that I'm just talking to my private equity companies about. I'm also want to bring this into universities, bring this into the school because it's a fundamentally different way to solve problems and anyone can do it. You don't have to have a technical background. We're at a foundationally different level where anyone can start their AI journey.

18:05

Lois: Right. And we're just at the beginning of this transformation of the industry. It's a great way to teach the next generation how to be prepared so they can have uh you know great careers and leveraging AI. So, one of the things you've mentioned to me when we've talked in the past is that you boil down AI to two things, data and math, right? Not innovation itself but a tool. So can you elaborate a little bit on that?

Jeffrey: Yeah, it's one of the the things I like to say. I think if people talk to me and they say, you know, Jeff always boils it down. So, you know, when I look at it, generative AI foundation is based on the concept of machine learning and deep learning. 

Lois: Right.

Jeffrey: Um both concepts are based on linear algebra, calculus, probability, statistics, optimization theory. You know those are some of the the the foundation of both of those. LLMs use these foundations and data to generate content and execute tasks. So people's actions in system generate the data that these LLMs use and and math follows specific patterns such as Bayer's theorem, Pythagorean theorem. The innovation that comes from those because you have math in terms of the machine learning and you have data requires thinking out of the box and not following one of these pattern, which is only accomplished through people and our unique experience. So when I think of generative AI that's why I see it as a tool. You're always going to require human interaction to drive an outcome. 

Lois: Right.

Jeffrey: It it is a combination of math and data. Our unique experience of how we engage and how we look at a problem brings innovation to a challenge. So that's one of the things I always say it's I boils it down to it's math and data. Innovation comes from people. And the reason why it comes from people is we all have unique experiences, unique backgrounds. So we look at a problem differently in terms of how we solve it and that difference is what drives the innovation.

Lois: Right. And just leverages AI to do so.

Jeffrey: Correct.

20:20

Lois: So you've said that AI levels the playing field. What does that mean to you in practical terms and how have you seen it make an impact in your area of expertise?

Jeffrey: When I say level the playing ground, what I mean is there's a unique opportunity where this technology is impacting every industry that we know. Prior to this, you know, if there was a technology solution such as, let's look at the big ones, cloud, everyone moving to the cloud, it required you to have some knowledge of cloud technology. Big data it required you to have some knowledge of data solutions. AI is so transformational that you know if we look take a look at vibe coding that's out there. Your ability to think about a problem and break it down in a in a tangible way and build an app and leverage vibe coding where the LLM can actually do the hard work for you is transformational. It doesn't require you to have that knowledge to drive it. Now to take some and to and and that what what does that do? That allows you to quickly take a business idea from concept all the way to an MVP and then you can then move that into production and and and start making money on whatever that idea is.

Does that take you 100% away? No. You're still going to need someone to run it and all of that. But what what I love about it is a lot of individuals have many different ideas and many different concepts. You can now quickly materialize those into a technology solution without having to have a technology background because the hard work of executing that code can be handled by an LLM. That's just one example if we just talk about coding. If you look at other industries such as the legal industry that is doing a lot of stuff around um just looking at how can you quickly process documents and read those, it's really revolutional. So what what I mean by it being transformational, it enhances each industry differently. So therefore, it's not that you have to have a technology background. If you're willing to take it on and look at it as a tool, then we are all at the beginning stage. And to be honest, I'll go as far as saying, Lois, if you don't have a technical background, you're actually at an advantage because you don't have to unlearn some of the activities that you used to solve problem with. You actually can come up with new ways leveraging AI agentic workflow to solve those problems quicker. So that's why I really feel like we are at a level a level playing field and it's a transformational piece and I'm encouraging as many people to just start becoming familiar with the different tools that are out there. Get you yourself a ChatGPT account, start working with Anthropic Claude, get yourself a Gemini account, start working with their notebook LLMs to generate, you know, um, infographics. It's amazing. And that's the new thing that I'm playing with right now. Start using these tools because what's happening is as you understand them, your creativity is going to say, "Oh, I can now do this." Uh, mark my word. I think this is going to be one of the pivotal era that we look back and say, "If I had taken full advantage of AI when it came out, I would have started this many businesses." And I don't want people to have that regret. So that's why I think you know dismiss the fear. You do not have to have a technology background to start AI. You can do that now. You can take your business ideas from concept to MVP, sell it to investors to get an investment to take it to production, and hopefully make the winnings that you want with your ideas. So I'm I'm I'm super excited about where we are as a society because I think this is a huge opportunity.

Lois: Yeah, I agree with you. I think we're we're witnessing a transformation uh revolution in in so many different ways and the cross industry applications are just you know mind-blowing.

Jeffrey: Yeah.

24:36

Lois: So for somebody who might be intimidated about pursuing an AI or OCI certification you just mentioned how you would encourage them you know to get started anyway. What advice would you offer? How would you recommend that they get started?

Jeffrey: So first of all I would say go to Oracle University.

Lois: Thank you.

Jeffrey: You know I check out their courses. You know the thing that I would say that I like about um the courses there is it's self-paced. It's easily easy to absorb and then it goes deep into whatever topic you want. So, it starts off very high level to give you the background of what you need, but it goes really deep if there's something that you want to go in on. That's that's the first thing. The other piece that I love about it is the courses not only just have talking points, but they have hands-on labs that you can actually put to action the content that you just learned. So one of those hands-on lab with the lab is based on Oracle Live Labs and a little plug for my wife. Oracle Live Labs was created by Kay. I remember when she was here at home building this almost three four five years ago and it's amazing to see the coursework that they have. They have so many different hands-on labs that they can do. So, I would say because of the combination of this great structured content, the ability to then have the hands-on lab through Live Lab that you can then put into action the things that you you you've learned, then it's a quick and tangible way to just receive content and actually test it out. And, you know, to watch Live Labs grow, to see where it is. I'm just I'm I'm excited for her. I'm proud. I know it's one of her her passion. She always says it's it's her her gift to developers is Live Labs because as an engineer myself I can't just hear something and learn it. I have to put it to action. So I think that combination of Oracle University having the content and then having mechanisms like Live Lab to do hands-on is why people should go there and start and then some of the courses you guys have they're free.

Lois: Absolutely.

Jeffrey: I wouldn't do that. So if they're free, like let me go ahead and start it now and then as I go up, you know, even if there's a charge, like there's a benefit. So you guys have offered such a low entry um um hurdle to start that I don't see why you wouldn't just start there.

Lois: And all of our OCI training is free as well as the foundations associate certification. So you're right, there's there's no barrier to entry for sure.

Jeffrey: Mhm.

27:13

Lois: Well, Jeffrey, I want to thank you so much for sharing your journey with me today. Your enthusiasm, your experience, and your expertise has just really been inspiring and um I've just been really happy to hear about how this has not only impacted your career, but also your outlook on the industry and um influence the people around you. So, thank you again. I really appreciate it.

Jeffrey: Anytime. I'm excited that I was able to share my journey and I hope everyone, you know, starts their own. So excited. Thank you.

Lois: Thank you.

27:54

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