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= Vivek Sawant = Mr. Vivek Sawant is the Managing Director and CEO of Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited (MKCL) since its inception in 2001. Under his leadership, MKCL has emerged as a high-tech

initiative of the Government of Maharashtra and 10 universities in Maharashtra for development and delivery of Education, Governance and Empowerment technologies, solutions and services to masses.

Career
Soon after completing his school and college education in Nasik and Post-Graduate education in Pune, Mr. Sawant served as a teacher of Physics, Electronics and Computer Science at the Fergusson College, Pune from 1979 to 1987 and as the Deputy Director of Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research from 1987 to 1988. Later he participated in design and development of India’s first indigenous Supercomputers PARAM at C-DAC from 1988 to 2000. There he served in various leadership roles in the fields of: High Performance Computing Architecture, Supercomputing Applications Development, Modeling and Simulations, e-Governance Solutions Development, IT Applications Development for Rural Areas, National Supercomputing Computing Facility Development, Intellectual Resources Development.

During his tenure at C-DAC, he developed the nationwide network of 20 Advanced Computing Training Schools (ACTS). Under his leadership at ACTS, more than 25,000 engineering graduates from various disciplines were rigorously trained in software engineering and state-of-the-art software development tools and methodologies. All of them were placed in leading IT industries in India and abroad and are now serving in leadership roles all over the developed world. Later he also served as the founder Director of International Institute of Information Technology at Rajiv Gandhi Infotech Park at Hinjawadi, Pune

Work
In MKCL, he has successfully integrated a network of about 5420 Authorized Learning Centers spanning over the Maharashtra state. This is the single largest private-public-partnership network of its kind in India. About 9 million (90 Lac) learners from metros to rural and tribal areas have taken a low-cost, high-quality IT Literacy eLearning experiences leading to MS-CIT certification through this network in last 11 years. This venture has provided employment and self-employment opportunities in the field of IT to about 25,000 youngsters in the state at their own native places. Under his leadership, MKCL with its popular brands such as ERA, Digital University, OASIS, etc. has offered its Digital Empowerment services to more than 20 million (2 Crore) common people in several states of India as well as abroad. Today while MKCL has emerged as a self-sustaining, wealth creating and ever growing enterprise it is firmly committed to its social responsibility and social accountability

In order to ensure the success of citizen-centric eGovernance projects, Mr.Vivek Sawant strategically initiated IT Literacy campaign within the Government of Maharashtra from 1995 which today in the form of MKCL and MS-CIT has emerged as the largest IT Literacy movement in the world. It is widely recognized as the de-facto benchmark in IT Literacy and also the major step towards bridging the Digital Divide and resultant Knowledge Divide and Opportunity Divide in the semi-urban, rural, tribal and hilly areas of the state.

Research
His research interests include:


 * Development of New Paradigms in Education
 * Nurturance of Excellence and Talent
 * Development of innovative technologies and solutions for delivery of Education, Governance and Empowerment services to masses
 * Building Talent Capital, Knowledge Capital and Customer-Relationship Capital in a 21st Century Corporation committed to social development
 * Building Private-Public-People Partnership Networks
 * Development of Knowledge-Based Sustainable Habitats with community participation

Honours and awards:
Mr.Vivek Sawant has been felicitated by various awards for his distinguished contributions in the fields of education, high performance computing, entrepreneurship development, leadership development, innovations, etc. Some of the awards are –


 * Dnyana Surya Award
 * Ninad Award
 * Rotary’s Young Recipient Award
 * Rotary’s Vocational Excellence Award
 * Yashokeerti Award of the Computer Society of India
 * Rajeev Gandhi Sanganak Sarathi Award
 * ETH Education Award
 * IT-ICON Award
 * Doordarshan’s Shikshan Ratna Award
 * VASVIK Award for R&D
 * Dr. Annasaheb Shinde Memorial Award
 * Maharashtra Corporate Excellence Award for Innovation (Maxcell Award)
 * Neelvasant Award
 * Dr. Narendra Dabholkar Memorial Award
 * Pune’s Pride Award 2014 for Excellence in Education

He was also nominated for World Technology Network Award at San Francisco for his work of likely long-term significance in education.