Chai Keong Toh (born 1965) is a Singaporean

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

, engineer, industry director, former VP/CTO and university professor. He is currently a Senior Fellow at the

University of California Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley ...

, USA. He was formerly Assistant Chief Executive (Engineering & Technology) of Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) Singapore. He has performed research on

wireless ad hoc network A wireless ad hoc network (WANET) or mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a decentralized type of wireless network. The network is ad hoc because it does not rely on a pre-existing infrastructure, such as routers or wireless access points. Instead, ...

mobile computing Mobile computing is human–computer interaction in which a computer is expected to be transported during normal usage and allow for transmission of data, which can include voice and video transmissions. Mobile computing involves mobile commun ...

Internet Protocol The Internet Protocol (IP) is the network layer communications protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams across network boundaries. Its routing function enables internetworking, and essentially establishes the Internet. IP ...

s, and

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms, such as Text (literary theory), writing, Sound, audio, images, animations, or video, into a single presentation. T ...

for over two decades. Toh's current research is focused on Internet-of-Things (IoT), architectures, platforms, and applications behind the development of smart cities.

Early life

Born in Singapore, Toh studied in

Singapore Polytechnic Singapore Polytechnic (SP) is a post-secondary education institution and statutory board under the purview of the Ministry of Education in Singapore. Established in 1954, SP is the first and oldest polytechnic in Singapore, and is renowned for ...

and then received his university education in the United Kingdom. He subsequently moved to live and work in the United States. He studied at

King's College, Cambridge King's College, formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, is a List of colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college lies beside the River Cam and faces ...

under a Cambridge Commonwealth Trust Scholarship, and received his Ph.D. in computer science from

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

, UK in 1996 and his undergraduate EE degrees at the

University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) was a university based in the centre of the city of Manchester in England. It specialised in technical and scientific subjects and was a major centre for Research univer ...

in 1991.

Industry, public sector and universities

From 2002 to 2004, Toh was the Director of Research, Communication Systems, at TRW Systems Corporation (now Northrop Grumman Inc) in

Carson, California Carson is a city in the South Bay (Los Angeles County), South Bay and the Los Angeles Harbor Region, Harbor regions of Los Angeles County, California, located south of downtown Los Angeles and approximately away from Los Angeles International ...

. After his PhD in 1996, he joined Hughes Research Laboratories in

Malibu, California Malibu ( ; ; ) is a beach city in the Santa Monica Mountains region of Los Angeles County, California, about west of downtown Los Angeles. It is known for its Mediterranean climate, its strip of beaches stretching along the Pacific Ocean coa ...

. At Hughes, he co-led the

DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adva ...

TTO DAMAN (Deployable and Adaptive Mobile Ad Hoc Networks) Program. Earlier on, he worked as an engineer at Advanced Logic Research Computers, Archive Corporation, and served on the technology advisory board of Convergence Corporation (acquired by

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...

). Since 2011, he has been appointed the Tsing Hua Honor Chair Professor of Computer Science (Taiwan). He has also been an Honorary Professor at the University of Hong Kong, China (2004–2009), Honorary Professor at the University of Essex, UK (2013–2015), Honorary Professor at the University of Haute Alsace, FRANCE (2013), and Advisory Professor of Computer Science at Technical University of Valencia, SPAIN. Earlier on, he was a tenured Chair Professor at the University of London (2004–2006) and on the faculty at University of California, Irvine and at Georgia Institute of Technology. In 2014, Toh was appointed as Assistant Chief Executive (Engineering And Technology), of

Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) is a statutory board under the Singapore Ministry of Digital Development and Information (MDDI). History The Telecommunication Authority of Singapore (TAS) was the statutory board that acted ...

(IDA) in 2014. He was concurrently the Chief Engineering & Technology Officer (CETO) of IDA. He left Infocomm Media Development Authority (formerly known as IDA) and joined Singapore Power Telecom Ltd as VP and CTO. Subsequently, he returned to United States.

Inventions and awards

Toh was as an IEEE Expert Lecturer of the IEEE Communications Society from 2002 to 2003. He is also listed among the top 20 authors in Wireless/Mobile Networks in the world by THOMSON Essential Science Indicators (ESI) for technical papers published from 1995 to 2005. His GoogleScholar.com and Harzing.com Publish or Perish total citation exceeds 20,000. Toh also invented Associativity-Based Routing and Wireless Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (Wi-Fi Ad-Hoc Mode). His first successful implementation of

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...

Ad-Hoc Mode was achieved in 1998 when he established a working wireless ad hoc network in Georgia, USA. In 2009, he challenged the "always-on"

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

model, claiming that the resulting energy burden globally is not sustainable. Instead, he advocated re-designing existing Internet architecture, routers, switches, servers and data centers. In 2011, he invented a method to identify witnesses during car accidents using a distributed information dissemination and data fusion approach. In 2009, he introduced "signs that talk", transforming traffic signs into wireless digital forms He is an elected Fellow of the IEEE (FIEEE), a

Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellowship of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (FAAAS) is an honor accorded by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to distinguished persons who are members of the Association. Fellows are elected ...

(FAAAS), Fellow of the British Computer Society (FBCS), Fellow of IEE (Institution of Electrical Engineers), Fellow of HKIE Hong Kong Institution of Engineers, Fellow of IITP (

Institute of IT Professionals The Institute of IT Professionals (ITPNZ) is a non-profit incorporated society in New Zealand. As New Zealand's Information communication technology, ICT professional body, the IITP exists to promote education and ensure a high level of professi ...

- formerly known as New Zealand Computer Society), Fellow of Cambridge Commonwealth Society, and Life Fellow of the

Cambridge Philosophical Society The Cambridge Philosophical Society (CPS) is a scientific society at the University of Cambridge. It was founded in 1819. The name derives from the medieval use of the word philosophy to denote any research undertaken outside the fields of law ...

, UK. He is a

Chartered Engineer (UK) In the United Kingdom, a Chartered Engineer (CEng) is an engineer registered with the UK's regulatory body for the engineering profession, the Engineering Council. Chartered Engineers are master's degree qualified or must demonstrate equivalent m ...

and

Chartered IT Professional Chartered IT Professional (in full, Chartered Information Technology Professional) denoted by CITP is a professional qualification awarded under Royal Charter to IT professionals who satisfy strict criteria set by the British Computer Society (B ...

(CITP). In 2005, IEEE awarded him the IEEE Institution Kiyo Tomiyasu Technical Field Award, with the citation – "for pioneering contributions to communication protocols in ad hoc mobile wireless networks". He has undertaken research in

wireless ad hoc networks A wireless ad hoc network (WANET) or mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a decentralized type of wireless network. The network is ad hoc because it does not rely on a pre-existing infrastructure, such as router (computing), routers or wireless acces ...

since 1993 (while at Cambridge University) and had written two sole-authored pioneering books: "Wireless ATM & Ad Hoc Networks" (Kluwer, 1997) and "Ad Hoc Mobile Wireless Networks" (Prentice Hall Best Seller, 2001). In 2009, IET awarded him the

John Ambrose Fleming Sir John Ambrose Fleming (29 November 1849 – 18 April 1945) was an English electrical engineer who invented the vacuum tube, designed the radio transmitter with which the first transatlantic radio transmission was made, and also established ...

Medal ( IET Achievement Medals) in London. In 2019, he was elected to the

Royal Academy of Engineering The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) is the United Kingdom's national academy of engineering. The Academy was founded in June 1976 as the Fellowship of Engineering with support from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who became the first senio ...

, UK. In 2022, he received the IET Outstanding Editor-in-Chief Award from IET UK.

Bibliography

Books

* - also published in Japan (Japanese translation) and India (paperback edition) * *

Noted papers/patents

* * *

Keynotes and media

*, "Creating A Smarter Country" - Malaysia Business Radio BFM89.9 (2015), Malaysia *, PACIS 2015, Singapore *"Opening Address: 5G & Smart Nation", Next Gen Mobile Networks Alliance NGMN 2015, Singapore *, WirelessDays Conference, November 2013, Spain *, IEEE WAVE Conference, 2009, Shanghai, China *"Future Research Challenges for Intelligent Transportation Networks", IFIP Networks Conference, 2008, Singapore *, IEEE IPCCC Conference (2003), Arizona, USA *, IEEE Expert Lectures, 2002. Norway/Sweden/Finland.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Toh, Chai Keong Living people Singaporean people of Chinese descent 21st-century Singaporean scientists Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering Fellows of the British Computer Society Fellows of the IEEE Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows of the Institution of Engineering and Technology Alumni of King's College, Cambridge Alumni of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology People associated with the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology Cambridge Commonwealth Trust Scholars Chief technology officers 1965 births