Dr. Vijay Bhatkar is one of the most acclaimed and internationally acknowledged scientists in India. He is best known as the architect of India’s national initiative in supercomputing, where he led the development of India’s first supercomputer Param in 1990, under the technology denial regime. Dr. Bhatkar is also widely known for bringing ICT to the masses through a wide range of path-breaking initiatives, such as the celebrated GIST multilingual technology covering India’s 22 official languages with 10 diverse scripts that have dissolved the language barrier on computers once and for all; MKCL’s computer literacy program that made a world mark by creating 15 million computer literates within a decade, making it one of the world’s largest program of digital literacy and Education to Home (ETH) initiative for bringing the benefits of ICT to school education spanning over 10,000 schools. In the 80s, Dr. Bhatkar substantially contributed to the ushering of the electronics revolution in India through the development of color TV and color broadcast in India. He is also credited with the creation of several national research labs and institutions, notably amongst them being C-DAC, ER&DC Trivandrum, IIITM-K, Techno-Park, MKCL, IsquareIT, and Multiversity. Simultaneously, he has mentored several innovation-based start-ups. Dr. Bhatkar is today acclaimed as one of the top 25 pioneers who contributed to the development of India’s US$ 180 plus Billion IT industry.
Dr Bhatkar has served as a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee to PM, a Member of the Governing Council of CSIR and a member of the IT Task Force constituted by PM in 1998. He is a Life Fellow of IEEE (USA) and Fellow of ACM (USA), besides being a Fellow of CSI, INAE, IETE, NASI, MASc and GES. He has served as the Chairman of the e-Governance Committees of Maharashtra and Goa. Dr Bhatkar has authored/edited over 120 books and 80 technical and research papers and addressed several university convocations, international and national conferences and conventions and public functions. His ground-breaking articulations have been widely covered by both print and broadcast media. His current research interests are in supercomputing, artificial intelligence, brain-mind-consciousness, Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno (NBIC)Convergence, and synthesis of science and spirituality.
Dr Bhatkar was conferred with the Padma Bhushan Award in 2015, Padma Shri Award in 2000, and Maharashtra Bhushan Award in 1999-2000. He is the recipient of the prestigious Jindal Prize 2012 for science and technology in the service of society. He was conferred the Saint Jnaneshawar World Peace Prize 2010 by World Peace Centre. He was also nominated for the Petersberg Prize 2004 and was conferred with the prestigious Dataquest Lifetime Achievement Award 2003. Dr Bhatkar has been showered with a string of awards, notably the Adi Godrej Award 2010, C-DAC Oration Award 2006, KG Foundation’s Personality of the Decade Award 2004, PGCIL Award 2001, Om Prakash Bhasin Foundation Award 2000, Global e-Biz Award 2001, FICCI Award 1999 for Excellence in Engineering & Technology, Lokmanya Tilak Award 1999, Rotary Excellence Award 1997, Pune’s Pride Award 1996, H.K. Firodia Award 1996-97 for Life-Time Achievements in Science & Technology, Distinguished Alumni Award 1994 of IIT Delhi, VASVIK Award 1993, and Electronics Man of the Year Award 1992 and a many notable scientific, spiritual, educational and social awards. Dr Bhatkar is the winner of the Krishi Bharat Ratna Award for 2017.
Dr. Vijay Bhatkar has been the Chairman of the Board of Governors of IIT-Delhi and is presently the Chancellor of Nalanda University, Chairman, TAC, C-DAC, Member-TAC, NSM, Chairman, Unnat Bharat Abhiyan, Govt. of India, Chief Mentor of Multiversity, and National President of Vijnana Bharati. He continues to contribute to India’s National Supercomputing Mission (NSM) for the development of petascale and exascale supercomputers and their wide-ranging scientific and societal applications. He is also functioning as Chairman of the Oversight Committee of Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), an apex body of the Government of India that supports basic research in emerging areas of Science & Engineering. He is the Chairman of Unnat Bharat Abhiyan, India’s national initiative of connecting IITs and other leading academic institutions to villages of India.
Dr. Bhatkar did his Ph.D. in Engineering from IIT Delhi in 1972. He has been conferred Honorary D.Sc. (Honoris Causa) by Dr D.Y. Patil University, PhD by Gujarat Technological University and D.Litt. from Nagpur University, D.Sc., Andhra University, Vizag, PhD, Guru Jambheshwar University, Hisar, PhD, Amity University, Jaipur and D.Sc., KLEF University, Telangana, D.Sc. Honoris Causa, Dayalbagh Educational Institute, Agra, 2021, D.Litt. from Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya, Wardha, 2022.