Dr. Vijay P. Bhatkar
Chairman of ETH Research Lab
Dr. Vijay P. Bhatkar is most famous for inventing India’s first supercomputer, the PARAM-10,000, a machine capable of performing one trillion mathematical calculations per second.
For the Pune-based Center for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC)—of which Dr. Bhatkar was the founder executive director, the building this supercomputer was a dream come true.
So far, only the US and Japan have a proven capability to build supercomputers PARAM-10,000. It has catapulted India into the ranks of the elite nations that are in the rarefied world of tera-flop computing.
Another major achievement Bhatkar is credited with is GIST multilingual technology project, which happened at C-DAC. Taking into account the fact that India is a multilingual country of a billion people, where only 17 percent speak English, Dr. Bhatkar created GIST technology project, for all Indian languages. The technology made possible the use and co-existence of all Indian languages along with English on standard computers.
Bhatkar is now chairman of Pune’s ETH Research Lab, where he pursues his dream of bridging the digital divide, creating a knowledge-based society and making India an R&D hub for the world.