Biography
THOMAS I. M. HO was Professor of Computer and Information Technology at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Previously, he was a Senior Fellow inInformation Systems and Computer Science at the National University of Singapore from 1993-1994. From 1990-1992, he was Director of the Information Networking Institute atCarnegie Mellon University. From 1978 to 1988, he was Head of the Department of Computer and Information Technology atPurdue University which was recognized by the Data Processing Management Association for its Four-year Institution Award for undergraduate computer information systems programs. From 1986-1988, he was on loan from Purdue to serve as Executive Director of the INTELENET Commission which pioneered the INdiana TELEcommunications NETwork. He received his BS, MS, and Ph.D. degrees in computer science from Purdue University.
Dr. Ho has always been in the forefront of innovating on the World Wide Web. During the aftermath of the disputed election in Iran in 2009, his contribution Azadi4Iran.info was featured in The Washington Post. Dr. Ho has been actively involved in distance education experiments with real-time streaming to add instructional value to Web-based training. He is one of the founders of IUPUI's CyberLab. Until recently, he was also involved in electronic commerce with particular emphasis on commercial activities on the Internet. He was an early pioneer who recognized the potential of electronic commerce when he gained global recognition for his Web resource
Thomas Ho's favorite Electronic Commerce WWW resources in the mid-1990s.
He is also engaged in efforts to motivate primary and secondary students to study information technology. While in Pittsburgh, he served as External Liaison for Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh, a project to provide Internet access to the Pittsburgh Public Schools. In Singapore, he was a consultant to the IT2000 Education Sector Programme of the National Computer Board. Currently, he is engaged in experiments to apply “Web 2.0†tools to improve teaching and learning through information technology. In the social media space, he is most engaged in helping non-profit organizations to harness social media to build community. Especially, he is a strong proponent of "personal branding via an online identity" as demonstrated by this page. Also, he is bullish on mobility and is currently using an Android tablet as well as an Android phone. Finally, he is a proponent of cloud computing and uses a Chromebook as his primary device when neither his tablet nor his phone is more productive.
