Sunil Shivaji Khandbahale (born June 1, 1978) is a
MITSloan Fellow,
Innovator and
Entrepreneur from
Nashik,
India.[1] He is the founder and
CEO of KHANDBAHALE.COM, a free multilingual digital
dictionary and
translation platform for 23 languages, with a vocabulary of 10 million words and phrases.[2][3][4] He is a regular technology and innovation columnist for national and international media.[5][6][7]
Early life and education
Khandbahale was born in Nashik.[8] He could not afford to enroll at a computer training institute after graduating high school, and so borrowed books and computer from his friend and taught himself programming.
In 2012, he launched 12 Language Dictionary on 12 December 2012 at 12 hours, 12 minutes and 12 seconds.[12][13] In early 2013 Khandbahale launched his twelve-languages dictionary on an
SMS platform.[14] His Languages Apps are also available on the Android platform.[15][16]
He also founded KHANDBAHALE.ORG, an organization which develops language-related projects such as Global Language Networking, Global Language Heritage, Global Language Friendship, Global Language Environment. He is a founder and secretary of the Global Prosperity Foundation, an NGO that focused on education, health and environment. In 2013 he was given an award as a youth icon by the Maharashtra Times.[17][18] On 27 December 2013, he co-founded
Kumbhathon with MIT Professor
Ramesh Raskar, an innovation platform to spot problems and probe solutions in
Nashik.[19][20][21][22] In 2014, in conjunction with Mumbai University, he started developing an English to Sanskrit thesaurus for use with mobile phones.[23] He had also developed Marathi language spellchecker software.[24][25]
While he was on his spiritual journey at
Alandi (Devachi),
Pune, he launched first ever 24x7 (Akhand) Online Dnyaneshwari Radio with the blessings of
Kisan Maharaj Sakhare and
Vijay P. Bhatkar.[33][34] As a student of
Central Sanskrit UniversityDelhi, he started Sanskritbharati Internet Community Radio as a all time listening platform for the Sanskrit language students.[35] He wrote Godavari Aarti and build a water innovation technology platform titled Godavariaarti.org for global collaboration on water issues.[36][37][38]