Yuen Poovarawan (, born 5 November 1950) is a Thai

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 ...

. He worked at

Kasetsart University Kasetsart University (; ; commonly Kaset or KU) is a public university, public research university in Bangkok, Thailand. It is the largest university in Thailand. It was Thailand's first agriculture, agricultural university and Thailand's third ...

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estim ...

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

until his retirement, where his last positions were associate professor in the Department of Computer Engineering and Vice President for Information Technology. Among his noted contributions are the development of

natural language processing Natural language processing (NLP) is a subfield of computer science and especially artificial intelligence. It is primarily concerned with providing computers with the ability to process data encoded in natural language and is thus closely related ...

for the

Thai language Thai,In or Central Thai (historically Siamese;Although "Thai" and "Central Thai" have become more common, the older term, "Siamese", is still used by linguists, especially when it is being distinguished from other Tai languages (Diller 2008:6 ...

, and the advancement of information technology services in Thailand, particularly the implementation of networking infrastructure at Kasetsart.

Early life and education

Yuen Poovarawan was born on 5 November 1950 in Bangkok, Thailand. The third out of six children, he is the elder twin brother of Yong Poovorawan, medical professor at the Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University. As a child, his family moved to

Nakhon Pathom Nakhon Pathom (, ) is a city (''thesaban nakhon'') in central Thailand, the former capital of Nakhon Pathom province. One of the most important landmarks is the giant Phra Pathommachedi. The city is also home to Thailand's only Bhikkhuni temple W ...

, where he attended Phrapathom Witthayalai School. He graduated

Bachelor of Engineering A Bachelor of Engineering (BEng) or a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE) is an undergraduate academic degree awarded to a college graduate majoring in an engineering discipline at a higher education institution. In the United Kingdom, a Ba ...

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

from

Chulalongkorn University Chulalongkorn University (CU; ; , ) is a public university, public Autonomous university, autonomous research university in Bangkok, Thailand. The university was originally founded during King Chulalongkorn's reign as a school for training ro ...

in 1972, and completed two engineering master's degrees, also in electrical engineering at Chulalongkorn University, and in

industrial engineering Industrial engineering (IE) is concerned with the design, improvement and installation of integrated systems of people, materials, information, equipment and energy. It draws upon specialized knowledge and skill in the mathematical, physical, an ...

at the Asian Institute of Technology, in 1974.

Work

Yuen began his career in 1973 as an instructor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at

, where he has since continued working. He began working on software development for

microcomputer A microcomputer is a small, relatively inexpensive computer having a central processing unit (CPU) made out of a microprocessor. The computer also includes memory and input/output (I/O) circuitry together mounted on a printed circuit board (P ...

s in 1978, and worked on natural language processing algorithms from 1980. He and his team demonstrated the first interactive text editor for the Thai language in 1981, and released Thai Easy Writer, the first Thai

word processing A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features. Word processor (electronic device), Early word processors were stand-alone devices dedicate ...

application, the following year. Yuen was among the proponents for the creation of a standard Thai language system for computers (over twenty had become available by 1984), and vice-chaired the committee for the development of the TIS 620-2529 character set and its subsequent version, TIS 620-2533. The Microcomputer Research Laboratory, which Yuen was head of, also developed the Thai Kernel System, a hardware-independent system designed to promote system-intercompatibility for Thai-language application development, in 1990, but this failed to gain a user base as it lost ground to the expanding

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

systems. In his research, Yuen pioneered the utilization of dictionary databases for Thai word splitting and

machine translation Machine translation is use of computational techniques to translate text or speech from one language to another, including the contextual, idiomatic and pragmatic nuances of both languages. Early approaches were mostly rule-based or statisti ...

, created the first Thai language thesaurus and developed word and sentence reconstruction methods for use in spell checking applications, among other things. Much of his work was presented at various national and international conferences. He also played a pivotal role in the development of Kasetsart University's computer network infrastructure, beginning in 1990 and leading to the implementation of Thailand's first fiber-optic university network, and by 2003,

wireless LAN A wireless LAN (WLAN) is a wireless computer network that links two or more devices using wireless communication to form a local area network (LAN) within a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, campus, or office building ...

coverage throughout the university's campus, the largest such network in Southeast Asia. Kasetsart has long been an early adopter of information technology services; its Computer Center, for which Yuen previously served as director, has enjoyed faculty-level status since 1985. He currently serves as the university's vice president for information technology. Yuen is author of over sixty computer-related textbooks, as well as other academic titles, and has long been regarded as one of the leading computer science experts in Thailand.

Personal life

Yuen is married to Wanna Poovarawan, with two daughters and one son, Nawan, Nanjana and Nutch Poovarawan, respectively. An early adopter of the technology, Yuen began communicating with his children via email in 1994, reaching out when they were abroad and teaching life lessons through analogies often taken from nature. For this,

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

named him one of its "web heroes" for its "the web is what you make of it" campaign promoting the Google Chrome browser.

Awards and recognition

As recognition of his continued work in natural language processing and applied uses of the computer, the National Research Council of Thailand granted Yuen the Outstanding Researcher Award in physical sciences and mathematics in 1996. He had also received the National Research Council Award for innovation in 1983, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1990 and 1992.. He holds positions on the boards of the Computer Association of Thailand and the National Electronics and Computer Technology Center, and is a member of the National Research Council. He also provides honorary consultative services to other organizations, including the Bureau of the Budget and the Revenue Department. He works with the

Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology The Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology (IPST) is a Thai state agency, founded in 1972. Its responsibilities include the development of national science and mathematics curricula, and sponsorship of science education, as ...

in curricula development for computer teaching, and is Thailand's coordinator for the

International Olympiad in Informatics The International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) is an annual competitive programming competition and one of the International Science Olympiads Student competition, for secondary school students. The first IOI was held in 1989 in Pravetz, Bulgar ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Poovarawan, Yuen Yuen Poovarawan Yuen Poovarawan Yuen Poovarawan Yuen Poovarawan Yuen Poovarawan Living people 1950 births Natural language processing researchers