Dinesh Katre is Principal Investigator (PI) for various R & D funded projects. He is also the Co-Mission Director for Computational Archival Science (CAS) and Digital Preservation and Augmented and Virtual Reality Missions at C-DAC. He spearheads the activities like domain research, project strategy, planning, visioning and conceptualizing the technology product / solution., design and development. He coordinates between multi-disciplinary teams, domain institutions, international partners and funding agencies.

Starting with himself as the founder of Human-Centric Design & Computing Group, he has successfully led, coordinated and nurtured a competent team of 60 developers and designers. Over the years, he has evolved a unique approach to technology development that focuses on domain research, participatory ideation and visualization, agile prototyping. He practices user-centred design approach to technology innovation. Some of the key projects led by him are listed below.

• Digital Preservation and Online Portal for Sanskrit Dictionary

• Centre of Excellence for Digital Preservation - for development of tools, standards, guidelines and pilot digital repositories

• Design and Development of National Digital Repository and Portal for Museums of India

• Standardized Implementation of JATAN Virtual Museum Software in Ten National Museums

• National Study Report on Digital Preservation Requirements of India - Recommendations and Roadmap for National Digital Preservation Program (NDPP)

• Interactive Game Design - He introduced interactive game design as one of the capabilities through projects in areas such as health awareness, informal learning through museums, watershed management learning, typing tutor for Indian Scripts.

• Digital Library Tools and Technologies for Indian Heritage

• National Multimedia Resource Centre - Multimedia authoring tools and interactive applications

In 1999, Katre established National Multimedia Resource at C-DAC with funding support from the then Department of Electronics (DoE). As a part of this project, he led the development of CD ROMs on Multimedia Rendering of Dnyaneshwari which involved computer animation of metaphors, hyperlinking and search & retrieval through text and audio recitation of approx. 10,000 Ovis of Dnyaneshwari and 700 Shlokas of Bhagvad Gita. Also, he led the development of Shaili a clipart collection of heritage motifs and design patterns that have appeared on ancient temples and a multimedia authoring tool. He designed the course syllabus for teaching computer animation and multimedia, and offered the courses through 15 authorized training centres of ACTS, C-DAC. Through this training initiative, over 2500 professionals got trained and found employment in animation and multimedia sector during 12 years of sustained efforts between1995-2007. In 2000, he organized a national conference on Multimedia Technology for Culture.