Padma Bhushan Dr. Vijay Bhatkar is one of the most acclaimed and internationally acknowledged scientists of India. He is presently the Chancellor of Nalanda University. In this role, he has committed himself to resurrecting the glory of ancient Nalanda in the context of the 21st century. Prior to this, he served as the Chairman of the Board of Governors of IIT Delhi from 2012 to 2017.

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. Currently, he is steering the National Supercomputing Mission, focusing on developing Exascale Architecture Supercomputing for India.

Dr. Bhatkar is also widely recognized for bringing Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to the masses through a wide range of path-breaking initiatives. These include the celebrated GIST multilingual technology, covering India’s 22 official languages with 10 diverse scripts, effectively eliminating language barriers on computers. He also played a key role in MKCL’s computer literacy programme, which created 10 million computer-literate individuals within a decade. Additionally, his Education to Home (ETH) initiative has significantly contributed to bringing ICT benefits to school education.

In the 1980s, Dr. Bhatkar made substantial contributions to ushering in the electronics revolution in India. He is credited with the creation of several national research labs and institutions, notably including C-DAC, ER&DC Trivandrum, IIITM-K TechnoPark, MKCL, IsquareIT, ETH Research Lab, and Multiversity. Alongside this, he has mentored numerous innovation-based startups.

Dr. Bhatkar has served as a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Prime Minister, a member of the Governing Council of CSIR, and a member of the IT Task Force constituted by the Prime Minister in 1998. He is a Life Fellow of IEEE (USA) and Fellow of ACM (USA), and also a Fellow of CSI, INAE, IETE, NASI, MASc, and GES. He has also served as the Chairman of the e-Governance Committees of Maharashtra and Goa.

He has authored and edited over 12 books and 80 technical and research papers, and has addressed several university convocations, as well as international and national conferences and conventions.