Vice Chancellor – Nalanda University & Chairman of Unnat Bharat Abhiyan – Government of India, National President of Vijnana Bharati, Founder Multiversity Pune ,
Dr. Vijay Bhatkar is one of most acclaimed and internationally acknowledged scientists of 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 has dissolved the language barrier on computers once for all; MKCL’s computer literacy programme that made a world mark by creating 10 million computer literates within a decade, making it one of the world’s largest program of digital literacy.
Dr. Bhatkar has served as a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee to PM, 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 Fellow of CSI, INAE, IETE, NASI, MASc and GES. He has served as the Chairman of e-Governance Committees of Maharashtra and Goa. Dr. Bhatkar has authored/edited over 20 books and 80 technical and research papers and addressed several university convocations, international and national conferences and conventions and public functions.

Dr. Bhatkar was conferred with the Padma Bhushan Award in 2015, Padma Shri Award in 2000, Maharashtra Bhushan Award of 1999-2000. He is the recipient of the prestigious Jindal Prize 2012 for science and technology in the service of society. He was conferred with the Saint Jnaneshawar World Peace Prize 2010 by World Peace Centre. He was also nominated to 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 amongst them being 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 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,

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, Ph.D. by Gujarat Technological University and D.Litt. from Nagpur University, D.Sc., Andhra University, Vizag, Ph.D., Guru Jambheshwar University, Hisar and Ph.D., Amity University, Jaipur