Chai Keong Toh


Chai Keong Toh is a Singaporean computer scientist, engineer, professor, and Chief Engineering and Technology Officer. He has performed research on wireless ad hoc networks, mobile computing, Internet Protocols, and multimedia for over two decades.

Early life

Born in Singapore, Toh 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 under a Cambridge Commonwealth Trust Scholarship, and received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from University of Cambridge, UK in 1996 and his undergraduate EE degrees at the University of Manchester, Institute of Science and Technology in 1991.

Industry, public sector and universities

From 2002 to 2004, Toh was the Director of Research, Communication Systems, at TRW Systems Corporation in Carson, California. After his PhD in 1996, he joined Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California. At Hughes, he co-led the DARPA TTO DAMAN 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.
Since 2011, he has been appointed the Tsing Hua Honor Chair Professor of Computer Science. He has also been an Honorary Professor at the University of Hong Kong, China, Honorary Professor at the University of Essex, UK, Honorary Professor at the University of Haute Alsace, FRANCE, 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 and on the faculty at University of California, Irvine and at Georgia Institute of Technology.
In 2014, Toh was appointed as Assistant Chief Executive, a newly created position, of Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore in 2014. He will subsequently be the
Chief Engineering & Technology Officer of IDA.

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 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. His first successful implementation of Wi-Fi 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 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, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Fellow of the British Computer Society, Fellow of IEE, Fellow of HKIE Hong Kong Institution of Engineers, Fellow of IITP, Fellow of Cambridge Commonwealth Society, and Life Fellow of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, UK. He is a Chartered Engineer and Chartered IT Professional.
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 since 1993 and had written two sole-authored pioneering books: "Wireless ATM & Ad Hoc Networks" and "Ad Hoc Mobile Wireless Networks". In 2009, IET awarded him the John Ambrose Fleming Medal in London. In 2019, he was elected to The Royal Academy of Engineering, UK.

Books

Keynotes and media