Dr. SIO IONG AO ("區小勇" in Chinese)

(Recent Photo)	Former Post-doc, Harvard University (ranked the top best university in the world during my research there in 2008/09)
	University of Oxford (ranked the second best university in the world during my research there in 2007/08)
	University of Hong Kong
	Chinese University of Hong Kong (B.Sc. (Hons.) and M. Phil. degrees)

Secretary General: International Association of Engineers
Editor-in-chief of Scholarly Open Access Journals: Engineering Letters, IAENG International Journal of Applied Mathematics, IAENG International Journal of Computer Science
Co-Founder, Founding Chairman, and Director: Newsbook Limited / Newswood Limited

Dr. SIO IONG AO is a world-renowned expert and inventor with more than 25 years experience in artificial intelligence, digiTech innovations and network engineering, authoring and/or editing 142 academic books (forty-one books published by Springer, the world's largest academic publisher, with total official eBook paid downloads on SpringerLink reaching 1.55 million times; one book by Taylor & Francis/CRC Press, the world's second largest academic publisher; one book by IEEE Computer Society; seven books by American Institute of Physics; seven books by World Scientific; eighty-five books by IAENG). It is an exceptionally prominent achievement that both of the world's largest two academic publishers have published academic books authored and/or edited by Dr. SIO IONG AO, with their combined total reaching an extraordinarily impressive forty-two academic books on AI, digitech and network engineering. A few examples of Dr. Ao's books in AI with the publisher Springer are as follows:
- Dr. Ao's book "Machine Learning and Systems Engineering" has 137,000 paid downloads on SpringerLink
- Dr. Ao's book "Advances in Machine Learning and Data Analysis" has 69,000 paid downloads on SpringerLink
- Dr. Ao's book "Electrical Engineering and Intelligent Systems" has 56,000 paid downloads on SpringerLink
- Dr. Ao's book "Intelligent Control and Innovative Computing" has 24,000 paid downloads on SpringerLink
- Dr. Ao's book "Trends in Intelligent Systems and Computer Engineering" has 35,000 paid downloads on SpringerLink
Dr. SIO IONG AO obtained his PhD on computational mathematics/AI from the University of Hong Kong, and finished his post-doctoral research in Oxford University Computing Laboratory, University of Oxford, and Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University. Dr. Ao is so exceptionally talented in AI that he has been post-doc in both of the world's top best two universities. Dr. Ao is a former Visiting Professor, Cranfield University, U.K. & University of Wyoming, USA. Dr. Ao is the laureate of the Young Distinguished Scientist Award (Artificial Intelligence) 2023, and the 21st Century Outstanding Young Engineer Award 2014. Dr. SIO IONG AO is the the honorary chair of the IAENG Society of Artificial Intelligence. Dr. SIO IONG AO is the first pioneer of the widely acclaimed minimax linkage hierarchical clustering in AI/machine learning.

Dr. SIO IONG AO is the principal developer of internationally famed AI software CLUSTAG and WCLUSTAG in medical sciences, and a prominent expert in high-level design thinking for AI and digitech programs, with many of Dr. Ao's 171 academic publications covering a wide spectrum of frontier advances in this topic. A few examples of Dr. Ao's books in AI software and high-level design thinking with the publisher Springer are as follows:
- Dr. Ao's book "Applied Time Series Analysis and Innovative Computing" has 11,000 paid downloads on SpringerLink
- Dr. Ao's book "Data Mining and Applications in Genomics" has 5,721 paid downloads on SpringerLink
- Dr. Ao's book "Advances in Computational Algorithms and Data Analysis" has 58,000 paid downloads on SpringerLink
- Dr. Ao's book "Intelligent Automation and Systems Engineering" has 32,000 paid downloads on SpringerLink
The software CLUSTAG is the first real-world application of Dr. Ao's first proposed minimax linkage hierarchical clustering.

Dr. SIO IONG AO is a high-profile leader in smart edTech and expert with international recognition in communication technologies and high-level information security, spearheading transformative initiatives in open access smart edTech publishing, while navigating all cardinal technology and information security development and implementation since 2005. A few examples of Dr. Ao's books in communication technologies and applications with the publisher Springer are as follows:
- Dr. Ao's book "Trends in Communication Technologies and Engineering Science" has 12,000 paid downloads on SpringerLink
- Dr. Ao's book "Advances in Communication Systems and Electrical Engineering" has 39,000 paid downloads on SpringerLink
- Dr. Ao's book "Advances in Electrical Engineering and Computational Science" has 141,000 paid downloads on SpringerLink
Dr. Ao has nineteen years prominent leadership experience of serving as the secretary general of a non-profit international engineering/computer engineering association, with over 210,000 ordinary members and over one thousand committee members from about fifty different countries. Dr. Ao's exceptionally outstanding achievements demonstrate his eminently excellence at nurturing digitech innovations and initiatives among complex multinational environments for international entities.

Dr. SIO IONG AO is an esteemed pioneer and entrepreneur with worldwide collaborations in AI/digitech innovations, exploring the insights and/or commercialization potential of deep academic technologies. A few examples of Dr. Ao's books in AI/digitech innovations and industrial applications with the publisher Springer are as follows:
- Dr. Ao's book "Electrical Engineering and Applied Computing" has 77,000 paid downloads on SpringerLink
- Dr. Ao's book "Electronic Engineering and Computing Technology" has 92,000 paid downloads on SpringerLink
- Dr. Ao's book "Intelligent Automation and Computer Engineering" has 28,000 paid downloads on SpringerLink
- Dr. Ao's book "Advances in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research" has 74,000 paid downloads on SpringerLink
Dr. Ao has eighteen years chief executive experience of co-founding a pioneering digitech venture in Internet computing and network engineering. Interviews by news media include the front-page interview by PC Market (issue 329) of Sing Tao Newspaper, and those by Hong Kong Economic Times, PCWorld Hong Kong, PCXpress, PCWeekly, PC.com, etc. In the news report by Sing Tao Newspaper (10/11/1999), Dr. SIO IONG AO was listed by this prestigious newspaper as one of the tenth Outstanding e-Entrepreneurs in Hong Kong. Newsbook is very often ranked as one of the major professional Internet computing, network engineering and e-commerce corporations in Hong Kong by the news media, with the archives of some selected historical news reports at our corporation website:

For the Chinese version of the selected news reports: https://newsbook.net/news_1.htm

For the English version of the selected news reports: https://newsbook.net/chi/news-1.htm

Minimax Linkage Hierarchical Clustering in AI/Machine Learning (the first pioneer)

Dr. SIO IONG AO's first proposed minimax linkage hierarchical clustering for our CLUSTAG project is listed in Wikipedia as one of the seventeen widely acclaimed linkage criteria in hierarchical clustering (Retrieved 9 March 2024). Dr. SIO IONG AO et al.'s first pioneering invention of the minimax linkage hierarchical clustering in machine learning has achieved satisfactory results in multiple independent scientific benchmark testing, like the following reports:

SIO IONG AO et al. report summary: "We have compared the performance of the three implemented algorithms, using SNP data from the ENCODE regions of the HapMap project, according to three criteria: (1) compression, the ratio of clusters to SNPs, (2) compactness, the average distance between a SNP and the tag SNP of its cluster, and (3) run time. Our results show that the compression ratio is roughly equivalent for the set cover and minimax clustering algorithms but substantially higher for the complete linkage (Table 1). The minimax algorithm produces more compact clusters than the set cover algorithm, ..." SIO IONG AO et al., The University of Hong Kong, in our article: CLUSTAG: Hierarchical Clustering and Graph Methods for Selecting Tag SNPs, Bioinformatics, volume 21, issue 8, pages 1735-1736, April 2005 (Advance Online Publication: 07 December 2004);

Bien and Tibshirani report summary: "Ao et al. (2005) proposed a new measure of cluster distance, called minimax linkage, for the problem of selecting tag single nucleotide polymorphisms ... We believe that their proposed linkage has great potential as a tool for data analysis ... we show that minimax linkage shares many of the desirable theoretical properties of the standard linkages while adding interpretative value ... thereby increasing the ease of interpretation ... we use two real datasets to demonstrate the appeal of using minimax linkage compared with other linkages ..." by Jacob Bien and Robert Tibshirani, Stanford University, in their article: Hierarchical Clustering With Prototypes via Minimax Linkage, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 106(495), 1075-1084, 2011;

Because of its proven advantages, different programming libraries have been developed by computer scientists for implementing it in popular AI and data science programming languages like:

Python - pyminimax in GitHub: https://github.com/beginnerSC/pyminimax

R - R Project: https://search.r-project.org/CRAN/refmans/FCPS/html/MinimaxLinkageClustering.html

Universities across America and Europe have incorporated Dr. SIO IONG AO's first proposed minimax linkage into their artificial intelligence (AI) undergraduate courses as standard teaching materials, because of the unique desirable properties associated with minimax linkage criterion. For example, two of the top three universities in AI over the world (U.S. News & World Report - Grad Schools: Rankings for Computer Science Program and AI Specialty; retrieved 11 March 2024), i.e., Carnegie Mellon University (#1 in AI) & Stanford University (#3 in AI), have taught the minimax linkage in their undergraduate AI courses like: Data Mining (Carnegie Mellon), Statistics & Data Science Undergraduate Program (Carnegie Mellon), and Unsupervised Learning (Stanford).

AI Software in Medical Sciences (the principal developer)

CLUSTAG – An AI program with set-cover algorithm and my first proposed minimax linkage hierarchical clustering in AI/machine learning to obtain a set of tagging single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), available for downloads at:
https://www.engineeringletters.com/editors/SIAO/CLUSTAG/CLUSTAG.htm

WCLUSTAG – An advanced AI tag SNP selection program with our minimax linkage hierarchical clustering, which can take account of both functional and linkage disequilibrium information, available for downloads at:
https://www.engineeringletters.com/editors/SIAO/WCLUSTAG/WCLUSTAG.htm

Dr. SIO IONG AO et al.'s AI freeware CLUSTAG and WCLUSTAG is listed in Wikipedia as one of the two internationally famed tools for tag SNP selection (Retrieved 9 March 2024). The software CLUSTAG is the first real-world application of the minimax linkage hierarchical clustering. Tag SNP selection can significantly reduce both the cost and the time of mapping genome areas associated with the target disease by avoiding the need to genotype every SNP in the chromosomal region. It is found that the genotyping cost saved can be as high as 80%. A few examples of the multinational medical research institutions that have been deploying/exploring/expounding our AI software CLUSTAG and WCLUSTAG for the recent nineteen years are listed as follows:

Medical Institutions: MRC Social Genetic Developmental and Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK; Department of Psychiatry, Trinity Centre for Health Sciences, St James's Hospital, Dublin, Ireland; Department of Psychiatry, Radboud University, The Netherlands; S Herzog Memorial Hospital, Jerusalem, Israel; Triversum, Alkmaar, Holland; University Clinic for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Essen, Germany; Departments of Experimental Clinical Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium; Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain; Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; and others
Multinational Research: The Analysis of 51 Genes in DSM-IV Combined Type Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Association Signals in DRD4, DAT1 and 16 Other Genes
Medical Scientists: K Brookes, X Xu, W Chen, K Zhou, B Neale, N Lowe, R Aneey, B Franke, M Gill, R Ebstein, J Buitelaar, P Sham, D Campbell, J Knight, P Andreou, M Altink, R Arnold, F Boer, C Buschgens, L Butler, H Christiansen, et al.
Molecular Psychiatry, 2006, 11, pages 934-953. https://www.nature.com/articles/4001869

Medical Institutions: Department of Psychiatry & Department of Surgery & Genome Research Centre, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China; Department of Surgery, Guiyang Medical College Affiliated Hospital, Guiyang, China; Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Ministry of Education Key Lab of Environment and Health, School of Public Health, Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China; and others
Joint Research: Fine Mapping of the NRG1 Hirschsprung's Disease Locus
Medical Scientists: Clara Sze-Man Tang, Wai-Kiu Tang, Man-Ting So, Xiao-Ping Miao, Brian Man-Chun Leung, Benjamin Hon-Kei Yip, Thomas Yuk-Yu Leon, Elly Sau-Wai Ngan, Vincent Chi-Hang Lui, Yan Chen, Ivy Hau-Yee Chan, et al.
PLoS ONE 2011, 6(1): e16181. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0016181

Medical Institutions: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Michigan State University; Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences, School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, USA; Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, USA
Joint Research: Software for Genetics/Genomics
Medical Scientists: Qing Lu, Yeunjoo Song, Courtney Gray-McGuire
In Book: Methods and Applications of Statistics in Clinical Trials: Planning, Analysis, and Inferential Methods, Volume 2, Wiley, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118596333.ch47

Medical Institutions: School of Agriculture and Food Sciences, University of Queensland, Australia; School of Biological Sciences and Institute of Agriculture, University of Western Australia, Australia
Joint Research: SNP Discovery Using a Pangenome: Has the Single Reference Approach Become Obsolete?
Medical Scientists: Bhavna Hurgobin and David Edwards
Biology 2017, 6, 21. https://doi.org/10.3390/biology6010021

Medical Institutions: Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health & Life Sciences Institute & Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore; Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, Melbourne, Australia; Department of Medical Microbiology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada; National Microbiology Laboratory, Winnipeg, Canada; Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia; Molecular Engineering of Biological and Chemical System/Chemical Pharmaceutical Engineering, Singapore-Massachusetts Institute of Technology Alliance, Singapore; and others
Multinational Research: Establishing Multiple Omics Baselines for Three Southeast Asian Populations in the Singapore Integrative Omics Study
Medical Scientists: Woei-Yuh Saw, Erwin Tantoso, Husna Begum, Lihan Zhou, Ruiyang Zou, Cheng He, Sze Ling Chan, Linda Wei-Lin Tan, Lai-Ping Wong, Wenting Xu, Don Kyin Nwe Moong, Yenly Lim, Bowen Li, Nisha Esakimuthu Pillai, Trevor A. Peterson, et al.
Nature Communications 2017, volume 8, Article number: 653. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00413-x

Medical Institutions: Institute of Molecular Genetics of National Research Centre, Moscow, Russia
Research: A Workflow for Selection of Single Nucleotide Polymorphic Markers for Studying of Genetics of Ischemic Stroke Outcomes
Medical Scientists: Gennady Khvorykh, Andrey Khrunin, Ivan Filippenkov, Vasily Stavchansky, Lyudmila Dergunova and Svetlana Limborska
Genes 2021, 12, 328. https://doi.org/10.3390/genes12030328

Books Authored and/or Edited by Dr. Ao (Partial lists; over one hundred academic books on artificial intelligence, digiTech innovations and network engineering in total):

Ao, Sio Iong. Data Mining and Applications in Genomics. Springer. 2008.

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4020-8975-6

ISBN: 978-1-4020-8975-6; Total Paid Downloads: 5720; Citations: 6

Ao, Sio Iong. Applied Time Series Analysis and Innovative Computing. Springer. 2010.

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-90-481-8768-3

ISBN: 978-90-481-8768-3; Total Paid Downloads: 11k; Citations: 8

Ao, Sio Iong, Burghard B. Rieger and Su-Shing Chen (Eds.). Advances in Computational Algorithms and Data Analysis. Springer. 2008.

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4020-8919-0

ISBN: 978-1-4020-8919-0; Total Paid Downloads: 58k; Citations: 37

Yuh-Shyan Chen, Xu Huang and Ao, Sio Iong (Eds.). Advances in Communication Systems and Electrical Engineering. Springer. 2008.

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-0-387-74938-9

ISBN: 978-0-387-74938-9; Total Paid Downloads: 39k; Citations: 47

Alan H.S. Chan and Ao, Sio Iong (Eds.). Advances in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research. Springer. 2008.

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-0-387-74905-1

ISBN: 978-0-387-74905-1; Total Paid Downloads: 74k; Citations: 22

Oscar Castillo, Li Xu and Ao, Sio Iong (Eds.). Trends in Intelligent Systems and Computer Engineering. Springer. 2008.

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-0-387-74935-8

ISBN: 978-0-387-74935-8; Total Paid Downloads: 35k; Citations: 70

Ao, Sio Iong, Xu Huang and Ping-kong Alexander Wai (Eds.). Trends in Communication Technologies and Engineering Science. Springer. 2009.

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4020-9532-0

ISBN: 978-1-4020-9532-0; Total Paid Downloads: 12k; Citations: 21

Ao, Sio Iong and Len Gelman (Eds.). Advances in Electrical Engineering and Computational Science. Springer. 2009.

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-90-481-2311-7

ISBN: 978-90-481-2311-7; Total Paid Downloads: 141k; Citations: 141

Ao, Sio Iong, Oscar Castillo and Xu Huang (Eds.). Intelligent Automation and Computer Engineering. Springer. 2010.

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-90-481-3517-2

ISBN: 978-90-481-3517-2; Total Paid Downloads: 28k; Citations: 53

Ao, Sio Iong and Len Gelman (Eds.). Electronic Engineering and Computing Technology. Springer. 2010.

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-90-481-8776-8

ISBN: 978-90-481-8776-8; Total Paid Downloads: 92k; Citations: 117

Ao, Sio Iong, Burghard Rieger and Mahyar A. Amouzegar (Eds.). Advances in Machine Learning and Data Analysis. Springer. 2010.

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-90-481-3177-8

ISBN: 978-90-481-3177-8; Total Paid Downloads: 69k; Citations: 15

Ao, Sio Iong, Burghard Rieger and Mahyar A. Amouzegar (Eds.). Machine Learning and Systems Engineering. Springer. 2010.

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-90-481-9419-3

ISBN: 978-90-481-9419-3; Total Paid Downloads: 137k; Citations: 69

Ao, Sio Iong (Ed.). Advances in Electrical and Electronics Engineering - IAENG Special Edition of the World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science 2008. IEEE Computer Society. 2009.

Ao, Sio Iong, Alan Hoi-shou Chan, Hideki Katagiri, Oscar Castill and Li Xu (Eds.). IAENG Transactions on Engineering Technologies Volume 3 - Special Edition of the International MultiConference of Engineers and Computer Scientists 2009. American Institute of Physics. 2009.

Ao, Sio Iong, Burghard Rieger and Mahyar A. Amouzegar (Eds.). IAENG Transactions on Engineering Technologies Volume II - Special Edition of the World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science 2008. American Institute of Physics. 2009.

Ao, Sio Iong, Alan Hoi-shou Chan, Hideki Katagiri, Oscar Castill and Li Xu (Eds.). IAENG Transactions on Engineering Technologies Volume I - Special Edition of the International MultiConference of Engineers and Computer Scientists 2008. American Institute of Physics. 2009.

Ao, Sio Iong, Mahyar A. Amouzegar and Su-Shing Chen (Eds.). Current Themes in Engineering Technologies: World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science: Selected Papers. American Institute of Physics. 2008.

Ao, Sio Iong, Alan Hoi-shou Chan, Hideki Katagiri and Li Xu (Eds.). IAENG Transactions on Electrical Engineering Volume 1 - Special Issue of the International MultiConference of Engineers and Computer Scientists 2012. World Scientific. 2012.

Ao, Sio Iong, Alan Hoi-shou Chan, Hideki Katagiri and Li Xu (Eds.). IAENG Transactions on Engineering Sciences: Special Issue of the International MultiConference of Engineers and Computer Scientists 2013 and World Congress on Engineering 2013. CRC Press (Taylor & Francis). 2014.

and more (authored and/or edited over one hundred academic books on artificial intelligence, digiTech innovations and network engineering in total) ...

Note:

(1) The publisher Springer has released the official paid download number of the electronic version of the book and its citation number on the SpringerLink webpage dedicated to the book (all data retrieved on March 18, 2024);

(2) The sum of the official paid downloads on SpringerLink for all my forty-one books published by Springer: 1.55 million times;

(3) Many of my books have been frequently ranked among the top 25% most downloaded eBooks in the publisher Springer's respective eBook Collection;

(4) For reference, the price for one eBook paid download on SpringerLink of Dr. Ao's book "Machine Learning and Systems Engineering" is EUR160. Very roughly speaking, the total revenue for the paid downloads of 1.55 milllion times for my forty-one books published by Springer is the product of EUR160 per download and 1.55 million times, i.e., EUR248 million. Assuming that the discount for institution/university downloads is 50%, the total revenue after the discount is EUR124 million (or US$130 million, or AUD$200 million). This figure does not include the sales of hardcover copies in bookstores like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It can be clearly seen that the IPs and copyrights associated with Dr. Ao's forty-one books in AI is a truly global, multi-million dollar business for the publisher Springer.

(5) The sum of the official SpringerLink book citation numbers for all my forty-one books published by Springer: 1702;

(6) According to the recent comprehensive scholarly survey by Andreas Nishikawa-Pacher ("Who are the 100 largest scientific publishers by journal count? A webscraping approach". Journal of Documentation. 2022, vol. 78 no. 7, pp. 450-463. Emerald Publishing), the publisher Springer is ranked the largest academic publisher in the world, while the publisher Taylor & Francis is ranked the second largest academic publisher in the world. It is an exceptionally prominent achievement that both of the world's largest two academic publishers have published academic books authored and/or edited by Dr. SIO IONG AO, with their combined total reaching an extraordinarily impressive forty-two academic books on AI, digitech and network engineering.

(7) Five of Dr. Ao's fields of expertise are AI Software, Continual Learning, EdTech, Network Engineering, and Internet Computing. As the practitioners in these fields focused much more on real-world commercial application projects and many times the IP policies of their corporations may also limit the information that they are allowed to disclose to the public, the professionals in these industry-oriented fields are generally speaking not as motivated as those in some other fields to publish academic publications. Despite these difficulties, Dr. Ao is still able to publish his academic works so as to facilitate the spread of knowledge. According to the Google Scholar rankings for the fields with these five labels, Dr. SIO IONG AO is ranked among the Top 10 in AI Software, Network Engineering, Internet Computing; Dr. SIO IONG AO is ranked among the Top 50 in EdTech; Dr. SIO IONG AO is ranked among the Top 100 in Continual Learning (Retrieved April 11, 2024).

View the Open-Access Conference Proceedings Books and eBooks Edited by Dr. Ao:

Order the Academic Books Authored and/or Edited by Dr. Ao with Publishers like AIP and Springer at Amazon:

Order the Academic Books Authored and/or Edited by Dr. Ao with Publishers like AIP and Springer at Barnes & Noble:

View / Order the Academic Books Authored and/or Edited by Dr. Ao with the Publisher Springer at Springer's Official Website:

More about Dr. Sio-Iong Ao in details:

Childhood:

Dr. Sio-Iong Ao grew up in a low-income family. During his kindergarten and primary school education, Dr. Ao and his three other family members lived in a temporary wood unit of about one hundred square feet in a shelter area in Macau. For most of his secondary school and university education, Dr. Ao and his three other family members lived in one single room of about 100 square feet in a sub-divided old apartment in Hong Kong. The sub-divided apartment hosted a total of 5 different families and there was only one toilet and one kitchen for these five families to share. Dr. Ao volunteered to help his family to earn extra income since kindergarten, like for example assisting her mother who brought the semi-manufactured products of artificial flowers and trousers home to finish them. In the summer holiday of his first year as a junior secondary school student, Dr. Ao started doing full-time summer jobs. His first full-time summer job was in a textile factory. In the following summer holiday, Dr. Ao worked in a construction site for the tunnel Eastern Harbour Crossing, which was going to connect the Hong Kong Island and Kowloon East. His other part-time jobs during secondary school include working in McDonald's restaurant, government youth centre and giving private tutorials to students etc.

Founding of Companies:

After serving as private tutor throughout Dr. Ao' high school study, Dr. Ao initiated the setting up of a tutorial company, which was to arrange its own tutors for the students in Hong Kong. Dr. Ao, along with his brother, found the tutorial company in the summer holiday after Dr. Ao finished his high school public examination. The company turned out to be a success. After the summer holiday, Dr. Ao started his university education, and his mother started to run this company, with the income much higher than her old jobs as cleaner in McDonald's and office.

In the same month after his university graduation, Dr. Ao has found his internet application corporation (Newsbook Limited) in Hong Kong in 1998, along with his brother. Nevertheless, Dr. Ao is the only person took part in the operations of the company during its founding process. Dr. Ao found this internet company because, at that time, the service charges for commercial web hosting and e-commerce applications are still very high. Most of the SMEs in Hong Kong still did not have their own commercial web pages etc. Dr. Ao's company was among the first hosting firms to offer monthly service fees in the range of $60 (all in Hong Kong dollars), comparing with the existing monthly fees of several hundred dollars by established telecom operators. This promotion turned out to be very popular during the economics downturn after the 1997-98 Asian Financial Crisis. There have been media reports to cover this founding and the company itself. A few media reports in the early stage are highlighted as followed:

Hong Kong Economic Times Newspaper Report (June 1999, 182 issue)

Hong Kong e-times ten outstanding entrepreneurs (Singtao Newspaper Report, Nov. 10, 1999)

Singtao Newspaper Cover Report, Nov. 17, 1999

Singtao Newspaper Cover Report details, Nov. 17, 1999

SME_report (7 June 2001, making money in bad economics times)

The listing of the other media reports about Newsbook are available as followed:

1999-2002; 2003-2006; 2007-2013

The awards won by Newsbook, including The best of the best Web Hosting Awards:

Newsbook_awards_2007_2012

The another brand of internet applications co-developed: 2000fun (which has once ranked among the top 300 websites in Hong Kong during the early 21's:

2000fun.net_with_Alexa_traffic_ranking_in_2004

Taking part in the community works of open-access projects:

The motivation for Dr. Ao to take part in open-access projects can be dated back to his humble childhood. In the 90's in Hong Kong, there were allowances from the government for the students of low-income families to buy textbook only. For the students who were going to take part in Hong Kong public examination (Hong Kong's own A-Level), they have to buy the books of the examination syllabus and the past examination papers themselves. Even though these materials are printed by the government, they are not free nor open-access to the students (even the poor students). In order to save his mother's financial burdens, Dr. Ao took his A-Level examination without buying any books of the official examination syllabus and past examination papers, and any reference books, which are even more expensive. Even though it turned out that Dr. Ao could still manage to get 4A1B1C in Hong Kong's own A-Level (out of the tens of thousands candidates each year, there were generally speaking around only one hundred candidates achieving 4 As or more), Dr. Ao believes that it would be much better if the materials are available freely/open-access. For highly developed regions like Hong Kong, there is still the problems of affordability of scholarly works. For other developing regions, the problem may be even worse. Thus, Dr. Ao actively took part in free works like the developing of free medical analysis tools, and the promoting of the open-access projects. Dr. Ao has volunteered to serve as the secretary-general of the International Association of Engineers since 2005, initiating various open-access projects. Dr. Ao served as the editor-in-chief for open-access journals and lecture note series. The open-access scholar projects turned out to be popular, especially among the low-income countries:

The traffic flow (measured by Alexa) of the International Association of Engineer ranks among the top eighth place (Top Sites in: Science > Organizations > Associations):

alexa_iaeng_ranking_2014_June_9.jpg

The open-access lecture note series LNECS (with Dr. Ao serving as the editor-in-chief for eight years) ranks the fifth place among the journal titles (articles) by the prestigious DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals):

DOAJ_LNECS_rank_fifth_among_top_ten_journals_(articles)_2014_June_9.jpg

There are a total of 10545 open-access academics articles published by publishers based in Hong Kong measured by DOAJ (up to June 9, 2014):

DOAJ_open_access_articles_by_publishers_in_Hong_Kong_2014_June_9.jpg

Among these 10545 open-access articles from Hong Kong publishers, Dr. Ao volunteered to serve as the editor-in-chief and are responsible for the editing of 7469 articles (up to June 9, 2014). So, over 70% of all the open-access articles in Hong Kong are co-edited by Dr. Ao, fulfilling his childhood dream that the scholarly works should be available freely, while in highly contrast to the status of Hong Kong as a highly developed commercial international hub:

DOAJ_iaeng_total_7469_articles_2014_June_9.jpg

More details about Dr. Sio-Iong Ao in Chinese