Leadership

Professor Cao Jiannong is Vice President (Education), Otto Poon Charitable Foundation Professor in Data Science, Chair Professor of Distributed and Mobile Computing in the Department of Computing and Director of the Institute for Higher Education Research and Development (IHERD) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is a highly distinguished scholar in computing and data science. He has received numerous awards for his outstanding research achievements in the areas of distributed systems, computer networks, big data analytics and AI. Professor. He is also a member of Academia Europaea, a fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering, a fellow of IEEE, a fellow of CCF and a distinguished member of ACM.

Prof. Cao’s main research domain is high-performance distributed computing which refers to how a network of independent computers can collaborate on computing tasks efficiently and intelligently. Examples are IoT systems and blockchain. He is a pioneer in mobile distributed computing and his key achievements are the solutions he proposed for tackling critical challenges of distributed computing in the context of mobile and wireless networks. His recent achievements encompass fundamental research and engineering applications in wireless sensor networks and big data analytics that generate both significant academic and practical impact. Prof. Cao’s original contributions have led to numerous awards including the PolyU President Award, IEEE Innovation Research Award, Ministry of Education Natural Science Award, Ministry of Science and Technology Award, Brussels Innova Award, and Hong Kong ICT Awards.

Prof. Cao has published 6 co-authored and 9 co-edited books, and over 600 papers in major international journals and conference proceedings. He has also obtained 16 patents. For three consecutive years between 2021 and 2023, he was named as one of the world’s top 2% most cited scientists in an index by Stanford University. Prof. Cao has been invited to deliver over 50 keynote speeches / invited talks at international and national conferences.

He has directed and participated in over 130 research and development projects. He has a strong track record of competitive research grants received from both government and industry funding agencies. As a principal investigator, Prof. Cao has obtained over HK$101 million in grant funding.

Prof. Cao has held important roles within various IEEE committees, including serving as Chair of the Technical Committee on Distributed Computing of the IEEE Computer Society (2012-2014), and as a member of multiple evaluation and awards committees. He has contributed as a chair or member to several international conference committees and has been an associate editor and board member for numerous international journals. Lastly, he has actively served Hong Kong’s local professional communities, including as Entrepreneurship Advisor of HK A.I. Lab., member of the HK Innovation and Technology Fund Research Projects Assessment Panel, and member of the Engineering Panel of the Hong Kong Research Grant Council, among others.