"Great men are born to lead" and so the birth of Dr. D. Y. Patil in an affluent agriculturist family of Kolhapur was the beginning of great things to come. Dr. D. Y. Patil did not rest on his laurels as a social worker but dreamt of contributing better values to the society. Thus began a vision "To endow the people with quality education in all fields". Dr. D. Y. Patil attributes this to the blessing of great saint of Maharashtra, Shri Gajan Maharaj of Shegaon. His dreams have been realised under the umbrella of a prestigious education foundation called Dr. D. Y. Patil Unitech Society (formerly Dr. D. Y. Patil Vidya Pratishthan Society's), which runs various institutions in Kolhapur, Navi Mumbai and Pune.
Dr. D. Y. Patil is a pioneer in ushering an era of privatisation of technical education in Maharashtra. He is a philanthropist, educationist and social worker. Under his able guidance, the Dr. D. Y. Patil Unitech Society (formerly Dr. D. Y. Patil Vidya Pratishthan Society's) has more than 75 academic institutions of international repute from kindergarren to post graduation in various disciplines in Pune. For this contribution to the cause of education, Dr. D. Y. Patil was honoured by the President of India with the in 1991. He was also conferred with two doctorate degrees in Philosophy, the first by The World University Round Table (USA) in 1985, and the second by a University in Britain in 1996.