Dr. SIO IONG AO ("區小勇" in Chinese)

(Recent Photo)	Former Post-doc, Harvard University
	University of Oxford
	University of Hong Kong
	Chinese University of Hong Kong (B.Sc. (Hons.) and M. Phil. degrees)

Editor-in-chief of Journals: Engineering Letters, IAENG International Journal of Applied Mathematics, IAENG International Journal of Computer Science
Founder, Newsbook Limited and Time Mini Storage (timemini.com)

Dr. Ao obtained his PhD 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 a former Visiting Professor, Cranfield University, U.K. & University of Wyoming, USA. He has been the founder and chairman of a leading web hosting and internet application development corporation in Hong Kong. He is also the founder and chairman of a leading mini-warehouse corporation in Hong Kong. Dr. Ao was selected as one of the Tenth Outstanding e-Entrepreneurs (1999) and also appeared in other interview reports including the front-page interview by PC Market, and those by Hong Kong Economic Times, PCWorld Hong Kong, PCXpress, PCWeekly, and PC.com etc...

His other honors included: (1) Selected for the First Edition of Who's Who in Asia (Marquis Who's Who, 2006); (2) Selected for the 25th Silver Anniversary Edition of Who's Who in the World (Marquis Who's Who, 2008); (3) Selected for 2000 Outstanding Intellectuals of the 21st Century (International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, England, 2008); (4) Commended for the Thirty-Fourth Edition of the Dictionary of International Biography (International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, England, 2007), and; (5) Selected for the Who's Who in the World (Marquis Who's Who, 2010) etc...

Dr. Ao is the principal developer of the genomics software CLUSTAG and WCLUSTAG. They are freeware (free software) that enable the medical researchers to conduct their complex disease analysis with no charge. Dr. Ao's research interests are mainly on the big data problems, like data mining algorithms, intelligent systems and their applications, and have published more than eighty books on these domains, including the authored monographs Data Mining and Applications in Genomics (Springer), and Applied Time Series Analysis and Innovative Computing (Springer). Dr. Ao has been promoting the open-access publications of research works for many years, publishing open-access books and organizing open-access journals and proceedings lectures.

Software in Medical Sciences (Principal Developer)
CLUSTAG – A program with cluster and set-cover algorithms to obtain a set of tagging single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)
http://www.math.hkbu.edu.hk/~mng/CLUSTAG/CLUSTAG.html

WCLUSTAG – An advanced tag SNP selection program which takes account of both functional and linkage disequilibrium information
http://www.math.hkbu.edu.hk/~mng/WCLUSTAG/WCLUSTAG.html

Books Published (Partial lists; over eighty books in total):

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 (Ed.). 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 (Ed.). 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 (Ed.). 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 (Ed.). 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 (Ed.). 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 (published over eighty books in total) ...

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

The founding of a leading mini-warehouse corporation (Timemini.com) in Hong Kong in 2004:

Reasons for Dr. Ao to found the mini-warehouse corporation: During Dr. Ao's childhood, his whole family has to live in an area of around 100 square feet, so many of Dr. Ao's learning materials after each school year and other things of good memories have to be thrown away as rubbish. For many other families, the living space in Hong Kong is also much smaller than most of the other developed countries. Dr. Ao thinks that it would be a great thing to have a very affordable space for the storage of things. In the early 21's, as many industry firms have already left Hong Kong. The old Hong Kong international airport has been moved away from Kowloon East, so many large logistics warehouses also moved away from Kowloon East. The vacancy of industrial flats there is very high. It would be a pity to waste the valuable land resources there. When Dr. Ao started the revitalization of industrial flats as mini-warehouses in Kowloon East in Hong Kong in 2004, it is eight years ahead of the Hong Kong Government's founding of the Energising Kowloon East Office in 2012 to transform it into the second CBD of Hong Kong.

Timemini_in_English_19_storage_sites_location_2014_June_9 (with total estimated current values of several hundred million dollars, plus the purchase of another one in Tsuen Wan area worth over ten million dollars has been formally signed in both parties' lawyer firms)

News reports about the popularity of Timemini:

2005; 2005-2006; 2006-2007; 2007-2013

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