Distinguished Alumnus Award conferred to
Sri. Madhu Pandit dasa

BY: STAFF CORRESPONDENT

Mar 12, MUMBAI/BANGALORE, INDIA (IIT-M) — Distinguished Alumnus Award conferred to Sri. Madhu Pandit dasa, Chairman, the Akshaya Patra Foundation & President, ISKCON – Bangalore.

The Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, on its Foundation day, bestowed the Distinguished Alumnus Award 2010 to Sri. Madhu Pandit Dasa (a.k.a Madhusudan Sivasankar), Founder Chairman, the Akshaya Patra Foundation and President of ISKCON - Bangalore.

The institute recognised and honoured Sri Madhu Pandit dasa for "his contribution to humanitarian service and organic farming", said the citation. This is the highest honour the Institute bestows on the Foundation Day. The institute honours five alumni every year and the others who received the Distinguished Alumnus awards this year along with Madhu Pandit dasa are Dr. Nitish Thakor, Professor, John Hopkins University, R. Chandrashekhar, IAS, Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of India, Adil Zainulbhai, Managing Director, Mckinsey India and Colin H Gonsalves, Founder, India Centre for Human Rights and Law.

As a pre-degree student, he was selected by the highly reputed National Talent Search program of the country. He completed his B.Tech in Civil Engineering from IIT-Mumbai in the year 1981. Having found the path that answered his quest for the Absolute Truth, right after his days in IIT-Bombay, Madhu Pandit dasa dedicated his life to serving the mission of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. He has nearly three decades of self less work behind him.

He has demonstrated ability in building organizations of excellence in the non-profit sector and is held in high esteem for his contribution to the society, in humanitarian, cultural and spiritual spheres. He has been instrumental in conceiving and implementing many social initiatives that have, are and will change the lives of million of people in this country. Besides impacting the social sector, his innovative presentation of utilizing the mesmerizing technological medium has rekindled and re-energized the interests in our rich Indian culture.

He designed and built one of the most popular cultural centers, ISKCON Sri Radha Krishna temple in Bangalore, which was inaugurated in 1997 by the then President of India. The successful completion of this project was nothing but the result of applying his training in IIT on a foundation of spiritual maturity for a selfless cause.

Sri. Madhu Pandit dasa said, "I am very humbled and honored on being conferred the Distinguished Alumnus Award on the 51st Foundation Day of IIT Mumbai. This recognition is considered by me to be the blessings of my worshippable Lord Sri Krishna and the blessings of millions of children we feed in Akshaya Patra."

IIT Bombay celebrated its 51st Foundation Day with Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Director, Prof. M. Barma, as Chief Guest.

ABOUT MADHU PANDIT DASA
Chairman, The Akshaya Patra Foundation
Chairman, The India Heritage Foundation
President, ISKCON-Bangalore

A passionate student of science, Madhu Pandit dasa was selected by the highly reputed National Talent Search program of the country during his pre-degree. He completed his B.Tech in Civil Engineering from IIT-Mumbai in the year 1981. Having found the path that answered his quest for the Absolute Truth, right after his days in IIT-Bombay, Madhu Pandit dasa dedicated his life to serving the mission of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. He has nearly three decades of self less work behind him.

"Madhu Pandit dasa's power to spread the message of spiritualism is very important. Particularly giving food through the Akshaya Patra program is really a very important mission and I greet Akshaya Patra for what they have done."
Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam
Former President of India, 2003

"The Akshaya Patra movement conceived by Sri. Madhu Pandit dasa of ISKCON- Bangalore is the realization of a long cherished dream."
Justice M N Venkatachaliah
Constitution Redraft Committee, Former Chief Justice of India, 2002

A visionary organizational leader.

Madhu Pandit dasa has demonstrated ability in building organizations of excellence in the non-profit sector and is held in high esteem for his contribution to the society in humanitarian, cultural and spiritual spheres. He has been instrumental in conceiving and implementing many social initiatives that impact million of people in this country, giving them a better quality of life. Besides his achievements in the social sector, he has evolved innovative ideas in presenting the ancient cultural ethos of India in a modern scientific and technological context.

The first few years after leaving IIT was dedicated to the challenges of his internal spiritual self-development guided by the teachings of Bhagavad-gita As It Is by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. In the year 1990 he took up the challenge of building one of today's most popular cultural and spiritual centers, a landmark destination in Bangalore: The ISKCON Sri Radha Krishna Temple . Starting with practically nothing, from a fledging two room rented premises, he built and led a team of selfless volunteers in what can be considered as one of India's largest fundraising efforts of those days, to set up this cultural monument at a cost of over Rs. 40 crores on a seven acres plot in the heart of Bangalore City. It was inaugurated in 1997 by the then President of India. The successful completion of this project was due his applying his training in IIT on a foundation of spiritual maturity for a selfless cause. www.iskconbangalore.org

RURAL DEVELOPMENT

Inspired by the idea of simple living and high thinking as taught by His Divine Grace A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Madhu Pandit dasa envisioned an eco-friendly and sustainable organic farm. His initiatives led to creating the Hare Krishna Nature Farm, in Mysore. This concept of impacting rural development through sustainable agriculture was conceived long before the organized sector realized its potential. The Hare Krishna Nature Farm grew to be a model farm and a case study in sustainable and organic farming in Karnataka, specific to the farmers of dry lands. Thousands of farmers all over India have benefitted from this project.

The Nature Farm believes in making a difference to the lives of farmers, who comprise over 55% of the nation's population. It is founded on the understanding that the diverse culture of farming rests with the rural population and any drain of rural population to the urban settlement results in the extinction of the delicate and diverse cultural fabric of the nation. The motto being, ‘Taking prosperity to the door steps of farmers'.

AKSHAY PATRA, FEEDING OVER ONE MILLION UNDERPRIVILEGED CHILDREN EVERYDAY

Madhu Pandit dasa then set about addressing the issue of supporting education through a mid day meal scheme. He worked at leveraging technology and philanthropy towards the cause of alleviating hunger of school children of this country. Thus was born the Akshaya Patra Program. It began as a scheme that fed 1,500 underprivileged children in the year 2000. In less than 10 years the Akshaya Patra Foundation has becomes one of India's best conceived, technology-intensive social sector initiatives. A strategic intervention in the education of underprivileged children that provides unlimited, free, hygienic, nutritious meals every day. This programme reaches over a million school children in eighteen locations in eight states in the country. The growth of Akshaya Patra Foundation demonstrates Madhu Pandit dasa's organizational ability in bringing together the best technology and innovation-talents , principles and practices of corporate governance, corporate donors, individual donors and the government into the social sector to address, in a scalable manner, one of the most pressing needs of the country, that of supporting education among underprivileged children.

The efficiency and intricacies of this Akshaya Patra program has attracted the Harvard Business School to make a case study of it. The practices of corporate governance in Akshaya Patra has attracted the CNBC India Business Leader Award-2008 under the category ‘Society Enterprise of the year'. The transparency and accountability has attracted ‘ICAI Award for Excellence in Financial Reporting' conferred by The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India for the year ended March 31, 2009. The leveraging of technology in education sector has earned itself the coveted Tech Awards Laureates 2009, as one of 15 global innovators recognized each year for applying technology to benefit humanity and spark global change. The Tech Awards, a signature program of The Tech Museum, and presented by Applied Materials, Inc. USA, selected Akshaya Patra from among hundreds of nominations representing 66 countries. These are just a few of the several accolades received by this program which has attracted leaders in business and politics all over the world as a model.

His vision is to scale up the Akshaya Patra Program by 2020 to feed five million underprivileged children in India. www.akshayapatra.org

INNOVATIVE PRESENTATION OF ANCIENT INDIAN HERITAGE

Madhu Pandit dasa envisions to showcase the rich Indian heritage through legendary stories of Mahabharata and Ramayana on platforms of world class presentation like 3-D Animation and Theme Parks on the likes of Disney Land. The India Heritage Foundation's first project was ‘Little Krishna', a 3D state of the art animation serial depicting childhood pastimes of Krishna. Impressed by its world class quality and business prospects internationally, The BIG Animation of Reliance Big Entertainment Pvt. Ltd entered into a partnership with India Heritage Foundation to complete the 13 episode serial with a production cost of over Rs.50 crores. ‘Little Krishna' has today won several national and international awards to its credit. To name a few it received Best 3D Animation - Asian Television Award- 2009; Outstanding Indian Animated Content- FICCI Frames 2008;Best Animated T.V. series- FICCI Frames 2008; Best 3D Animation Film- Golden Curser 2008; Best Animated Film-24FPS Animation Awards 2006-07.

Currently Madhu Pandit dasa is working on setting up a Indian Heritage and Culture Tourism Park. The ‘Krishna Lila Park' will be built with an integrated spiritual township in Bangalore on a 75 acre land in Bangalore city at an estimated cost of over Rs. 750 crores. This is the first attempt in this country to bring in the same technology that is used in Disney Parks around the world to create attractions centered around themes of Mahabharata and Ramayana etc. The unique funding strategy of realty cross subsidizing a major heritage and cultural tourism project on a grand scale by a non-profit organization is a startling combination of concepts brought together by Madhu Pandit dasa. www.biganimation.com/littlekrishna

One common personal trait of Madhu Pandit dasa can be observed to run through all these projects in the last three decades. His courage and faith in daring to dream and make the impossible happen out of nothing and engage the glorious results in the selfless service to humanity. The traits of a daring selfless social entrepreneur.