Vikram Sarabhai, The Making of a Renaissance Man: Musings

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Play, download and edit the free video Vikram Sarabhai, The Making of a Renaissance Man: Musings by Arvind Singhal on the Father of Indias Space Program.

Vikram Sarabhai (1909-1971) was an Indian physicist and astronomer who is hailed as the Father of the Indian Space Program. Born into privilege and educated at the University of Cambridge, U.K., Sarabhai returned to India to establish over two dozen world-class institutions such as Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), and Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A).

Sarabhai was the brains behind the legendary Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (or SITE) in India. For one year (1975-1976), NASA's ATS-6 Satellite was utilized by India to beam multi-language television programs to more than 2400 villages across India. Conducted 45 years ago, SITE demonstrated that developing countries like India could use state-of-the-art satellite technology to reach its information have-nots, thereby spurring an information revolution.

In this personal narrative, Arvind Singhal, a Distinguished Professor of Communication at The University of Texas at El Paso, reflects on the making of India's Renaissance Man, drawing upon his memory bank and conversations with others who knew Vikram Sarabhai. He draws parallels between Mahatma Gandhi's Salt, Swadeshi (Indigenous), and Swarajya (Self-Rule) with Sarabhai's SITE.

This talk is excerpted from a Vikram Sarabhai Birth Centenary Lecture given by Arvind Singhal in February 2021, organized by the Manipal Institute of Communication, India.

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