between 1973 and 1974, and was a chairman of the India Council. He had been the President of the Computer Society of India and was the chairman of the Southeast Asia Regional Computer Conference in Singapore in 1976 and chairman of the Southeast Asia Regional Computer Conference in New Delhi in 1988. He served the Management Consultants Association of India as a president between 1975 and 1976. He was the chairman of the Institution of Electrical Engineers. He went on to serve the Southeast Asia Regional Computer Confederation as a special advisor in 1989. After his retirement he continued to remain connected with technology advocacy and was known to have driven efforts toward adult literacy, water purification, and regional language computing efforts, in addition to being involved with TCS in an advisory role. He is referred to as the father of the Indian IT industry, for his role in setting up the Indian IT services industry and contributing to its growth to being a $190 billion industry. He is recognized for grooming a generation of professionals who would go on to become leaders of the industry. Honours In 2002, Kohli was awarded the Padma Bhushan, India's third-highest civilian honour, for his contribution to the Indian software industry. He was awarded honorary degrees from Shiv Nadar University, University of Waterloo, Canada, Robert Gordon University in Scotland, IIT Bombay, IIT Kanpur, Jadavpur University, Queen's University, and the University of Roorkee. He was a fellow of IEEE US, IEE UK, Institution of Engineers India, and the Computer Society of India among others. Other awards and honours: Dadabhai Naoroji Memorial Award, 2000. Lifetime achievement award, The Economic Times, 2002 Kohli Center on Intelligent Systems (KCIS), at IIIT Hyderabad, 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award, All India Management Association (AIMA), 2017 Personal life Kohli was married to his wife Swarn, a consumer-rights activist and lawyer, and had three children. He died on 26 November 2020, of a heart attack. He was aged 96. Positions held Source(s): Books References External links Profile on Queens University website https://web.archive.org/web/20061029105937/http://www.icssingapore.org/Adv_FCK.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20060721075626/http://appsci.queensu.ca/alumni/profiles/kohli/ 1924 births 2020 deaths 20th-century Indian engineers Businesspeople from Mumbai Tata Consultancy Services people Punjabi people University of the Punjab alumni People from Peshawar Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in science & engineering IEEE Centennial Medal laureates