Dr Vijay Bhatkar

India joined the elite list of nations with supercomputing
capabilities in 1991 when Dr Vijay Bhatkar led a team of engineers in CDAC to
produce India's first supercomputer-PARAM. It was the most resoundingly
proud retort to the US, which had then refused to let Cray sell its
supercomputer to India. Dr Bhatkar is also credited with nurturing the GIST
multilingual technology which made possible the use and co-existence of all
Indian languages along with English on standard computers.

Dr Bhatkar was the founder and former executive director of C-DAC's
well-known Advanced Computing Training School, member of the Scientific Advisory
Committee to the Cabinet of the Indian government, and was the chairman of
Dishnet DSL. In 2000, the government awarded him the Padmashri. He has
authored/edited 8 books and over 80 research publications in supercomputing,
artificial intelligence and distributed computer control.